“Treason Doth Never Prosper…

An attempted coup: ‘Installing slates of "alternate electors" was an integral part of the ill-fated plan conceived by Trump allies to usurp power on January 6 by pressuring VP Mike Pence to throw out the pro-Biden electors that had been chosen by voters.’ https://t.co/oPUeCP2DiF

— Nicholas A. Christakis (@NAChristakis) January 13, 2022

The documents contain the signatures of Trump supporters who claimed to be the rightful electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won. But these rogue slates of electors didn't have the backing of any elected officials in the seven states -- like a governor or secretary of state, who are involved in certifying election results -- and they served no legitimate purpose.

The documents were first posted online in March by the government watchdog group. But they received renewed attention this week, as the January 6 committee ramps up its investigation into Trump's attempted coup, including how his allies tried to stop states from certifying Biden's victory, in part, by installing friendly slates of electors who would overturn the will of the voters.

First, I'm not a criminal prosecutor; I don't even play one on TeeVee.  Whether these documents point to a crime, or even a conspiracy, is beyond me to say.  There are certainly enough federal criminal statutes on the books to make it likely these acts violate some criminal law.  Whether the evidence presents a prosecutable case, is another thing.  I just don't know.  But what this does show, is how very, very difficult it is to screw with an election process which is overseen by hundreds or probably thousands, not by a mere 50 state Secretaries of State.

As part of the Electoral College process, governors are required to sign a formal "certificate of ascertainment," verifying that the statewide winner's slate of electors are the legitimate electors. These electors then sign a second certificate, formally affirming their votes for president.

These documents are sent to the National Archives in Washington, DC, which processes them before they are sent onto Congress, which formally counts the electoral votes on January 6.

The real certificates, which have been posted to the National Archives website, correctly stated that Biden won the seven battleground states. They also list the legitimate group of electors from each state, rather than the rogue pro-Trump slate included on the unofficial documents.

Some of the fake certificates with pro-Trump electors were sent to the National Archives by top officials representing the Republican Party in each state, according to the documents.

So, at the barest minimum, governors have to sign off on the documents that verify the electors being sent by that state to the electoral college.  Which means that if Trump, in Georgia, had managed to get Raffensperger to "find" 12,000 extra votes, he would have also had to get the Governor of Georgia on board to verify the electors from Georgia for Trump, reversing the elections results and the certificate that had already (by that point) been signed by the Governor.  How was that going to work?

This was a coup by clowns.  It was also an attempted coup by people who had no idea how the electoral system worked.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  Was the attempt a crime?  It should be.  Was it anywhere near successful?  Not even close.

They sent these fake certificates after Trump himself failed to block governors from signing the real certificates. Specifically, Trump encouraged Republican governors in states like Georgia and Arizona not to certify the election results, and falsely claimed the elections were fraudulent. But these GOP officials ignored Trump, followed the law, and awarded the electors to Biden.

This was a clown show.  Illegal, perhaps; but definitely a clown show.  American democracy didn't teeter on the brink of anything.  Electing a few Secretaries of State willing to "rig" the election in favor of Trump or another GOP candidate in 2024 won't work, either; for reasons we'll get to in a minute.

Installing slates of "alternate electors" was an integral part of the ill-fated plan conceived by Trump allies to usurp power on January 6 by pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the pro-Biden electors that had been chosen by voters. The idea was promoted by Trump advisers inside and outside the White House, including controversial right-wing lawyer John Eastman.

Eastman, who has been subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, authored a memo outlining a six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election and award Trump a second term. The plan included throwing out results from seven states because they allegedly had competing electors.

In truth, no state actually had two slates of competing electors. The pro-Trump electors were merely claiming without any authority to be electors, as documented in the fake certificates sent to the National Archives. The certificates were essentially an elaborate public relations stunt.

The new documents weren't the only fake certificates sent to the National Archives. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, told CNN's Don Lemon that a second group called the "Sovereign Citizens of the State of Arizona" sent a rogue document to the National Archives in 2020, and she said they improperly used the Arizona state seal on their fake certificate.

"They used this fake seal to make it look official, which is not a legal activity," Hobbs said. 

A true confederacy of dunces, in other words.  A gang that couldn't shoot straight, but also wasn't funny.  However they can be prosecuted, they should be. 

And then the story gets interesting: 

Developments in two swing states offer some surprising clues on how to effectively debunk election disinformation https://t.co/hDOkV67qKG

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 13, 2022

In Republican-run Florida, the state is finalizing rules to recount votes by incorporating digital images of every paper ballot. The images, together with the paper ballots, create a searchable library to quickly tally votes and identify sloppily marked ballots. Questionable ballots could then be retrieved and examined in public by counting boards to resolve the voter’s intent.

“The technology is so promising that it would provide the hard evidence to individuals who want to find the truth,” said Ion Sancho, former supervisor of elections in Leon County, where Tallahassee is located, who was among those on a January 4 conference call workshop led by the Division of Elections seeking comments on the draft rule and procedures manual revisions.

Let me add a little more to that, because it's important:

Under the new recount process, a voter’s paper ballot would be immediately rescanned by an independent second counting system—separate from what each county uses to tally votes. The first digital file produced in that tabulation process, an image of every side of every ballot card, would then be analyzed by software that identifies sloppy ink marks as it counts votes. Several Florida counties pioneered this image-based analysis, a version of which is used by the state of Maryland to double-check its results before certifying its election winners.

“The fact that it has overcome opposition from the supervisors of elections is telling because the number one problem with the [elected county] supervisors is [acquiring and learning to use] new technology; it’s more work to do,” Sancho said. “The new technology doesn’t cost much in this case. Everyone has scanners in their offices already because every voter registration form by law must be scanned and sent to the Division of Elections.” 

So in Florida, touted as a budding "autocracy" because of the actions of Gov, DeSantis, rules are being finished which will make all ballots available to be examined in public by counting boards.  You see the probem, I hope.  What's the old adage:  three can keep a secret if two of them are dead?  How does a Secretary of State decide what the electoral outcome is in Florida if so many people, from the local officials to the Division of Elections to the counting boards, have access to the ballots and the tallies?    From whence comes this mythical power to throw out the results and declare a GOP candidate the winner of Florida's electoral votes, with no oversight whatsoever?

I'm not saying things aren't bad, or that we the people shouldn't be vigilant.  I am saying things are not as bad as Trump wants them to be, and we on the other side shouldn't adopt Trump's apocalyptic rhetoric because we think it's working for him, and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

The appeal of using ballot images, apart from the administrative efficiencies of a searchable library of ballots and votes, is that the images allow non-technical people to “see” voters’ intent, which builds trust in the process and results, said Larry Moore, the founder and former CEO of the Clear Ballot Group, whose federally certified technology would be used in Florida recounts.

That's not exactly publishing the ballots on the internet (heaven forbid!), but it is making the process more, not less, transparent.

In Arizona, Maricopa County issued a report on January 5, “Correcting the Record: Maricopa County’s In-Depth Analysis of the Senate Inquiry.” The report is its most substantive refutation of virtually all of the stolen election accusations put forth by Trump loyalists who spent months investigating its presidential election.

...

Taken together, Florida’s expansion of recounts to include using digital ballot images, and Maricopa County’s compilation of the data and procedures to vet voters, ballots, and vote counts, reveal that there is more evidence than ever available to confirm and legitimize election participants and results. 

Which means even fewer chances to monkey with election results.

It's not a perfect world in the future; but it's not the end of the world as we know it, either.