Imagine yourself as a Georgia GOP presidential elector.
Imagine election officials, the courts, and the governor certified Biden as the 2020 election winner, amid much controversy.
Imagine your candidate and his lawyers ask you to sign a document saying you, not Biden's electors, were "duly elected."
Question: Would you sign the document?
Republican electors in two states, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, hesitated to sign the official certification drafted for them by the Trump campaign. Their certification of election began with "We, the undersigned, on the understanding that it might later be determined that we are the duly elected and qualified Electors for President. . . . "
These certifications were changed from the language drafted for them by the Trump campaign, which wanted GOP electors in states Trump lost by a close margin to claim flat-out victory. Biden had been certified as the victor in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, groups of GOP electors in five states signed the documents drafted by the Trump campaign which directly stated they were "duly elected." The Trump campaign hoped that the two competing slates, each claiming to be valid, would cause the Biden ballots not to be counted, since there was an apparent dispute. No one would get 270 electoral votes. This would throw the country into chaos. There might be martial law, there would certainly be riots in the streets, and amid this civil unrest the House of Representatives would settle the matter by electing Trump. A presumably-friendly Supreme Court would consent to this.
That was the plan.
The plan required GOP state electors to agree to sign a document that began like this, claiming victory:
It concluded with their signatures:
I attempt to put myself in their shoes. They are Republican activists. They wanted Trump to win. Trump was personally calling state officials declaring that he had indeed won. Trump campaign lawyers were telling these electors that this was legal. The dual claims of election might let Trump stay in office. Sign. Or else Biden. The future of America was in their hands.
They signed.
I would not have signed. If I were a Republican elector I would have happily signed the New Mexico and Pennsylvania certifications, but not this one from Georgia nor the identical ones in other battleground states.
The document claiming I was duly elected and qualified would have stopped me. At best there was dispute, but in fact Biden's electors were duly elected and courts had investigated evidence and said so. My self-protection alarm bells would be going off. Don't sign false documents. "Duly elected?" No. I could imagine trouble down the road: Fraud. Perjury. Indictments. Trouble.
Electors are facing indictments in Michigan and in Georgia. Georgia electors are claiming that they were just following instructions of the president and his attorneys. That is undoubtably true, that they were following instructions, but that is not a legal defense in Georgia, nor is it a moral one. They signed claiming something that simply was not true.
I have asked four former elected officials who held nonpartisan office if they would have signed and they were adamant: No way.
A local Republican businessman who I consider quite reasonable, a Nikki Haley supporter, took the opposite view. He said if electors thought that Trump had won, or maybe won, even though the vote was counted, re-counted, and certified for Biden, then they had every right to sign it. Moreover, he said the state DAs and Department of Justice should not charge them with anything. There was no crime, he said. They were signing their opinion that they were duly elected. They tried something and it failed, so no harm was done. His frustration is directed at the prosecution. Why are they dividing the country by bringing this up? The DAs and DoJ are just squeezing innocent people into lying to give damning testimony against the higher-ups, he said.
I invite comments from readers. Try imagining yourself a Biden elector in a battleground state. Imagine Democratic leaders and your favorite cable news sources are saying that Republican operatives had created disturbances at precincts in your state's urban center, a Democratic stronghold, that suppressed the vote there. Actual fraud is unproved, but the events on election night are suspicious. Imagine a DCC attorney phoned you to say it was OK to sign calling yourself duly elected because it was just part of the legal process to give Congress a chance to sort out the truth. And if you don't sign then Trump is allowed to steal the election, and in his second term he would end democracy in America.
Would you have signed?
Write in the comment section, or send me an email directly and I may work your thoughts into a guest post: peter.w.sage@gmail.com
No. I would not have signed the phony pledge. But then I would have hung up when the Orange Monster or one of his henchman called and asked me to do so. Having a brain, I evaluate the facts before my eyes and act upon them reasonably, a skill that sadly seems to be withering in certain parts of the nation.
I can not imagine ever supporting a candidate that would ask me to undertaken such a reprehensible act. And if "my" candidate did, outside of blatant, documented, election fraud, I would find another candidate.
No