General Election 2024

"Legal Gambit" not "Illegal Gambit".

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Donald Trump's Legal Gambit Might Just Succeed

Oct 24, 2023
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Edward B. Foley, a constitutional law professor at Ohio State University, said that there is a long history of alternate electors in American politics that stretches back hundreds of years.

Writing for the policy think tank, Just Security, Foley said that Trump supporters signing off on his supposed victory in seven battleground states was "a fool's errand, since there never was a chance that Congress was going to recognize Trump as the winner."

That is just how Trump's lawyers are hoping a federal court, and likely the Supreme Court, will view their actions.

Newsweek has emailed Justice Department lawyers and Trump's legal team for comment.

As Foley points out, Trump's Vice President, Mike Pence, acting as Senate president, would not even open the envelope that contained the confirmation from the alternative electors.

"Mike Pence, as Senate president, would not even let these pro-Trump submissions be opened in the joint session of Congress because, without any claim of any backing from any part of their state's government, they could not be acknowledged as even asserting to be official electoral votes entitled to be considered by Congress," Foley wrote.

So was the action of Trump's supporters merely symbolic free speech and is there, as his lawyers claimed in their submissions, a long historic precedent?

Foley notes that Florida was hotly contested in the 1876 election between Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, and Democrat, Samuel Tilden.

Florida's attorney general, a Democrat, purported to certify Tilden the winner of the state. On the same day, however, Republican electors in Florida voted for Hayes, backed by a certification from the state's canvassing board.

Later, Florida's judiciary and legislature would act to undo the canvassing board's certification. There were no indictments of any of those involved as it was considered a legal dispute.

"In South Carolina, by contrast, there was no one with any colorable claim of official authority in a position to certify Tilden the winner. Still, Democrats there were claiming that he had won" and still "submitted their spurious electoral votes to the Senate president".

"None of these South Carolina individuals (as far as I know from my research) were criminally investigated or prosecuted for making this assertion," Foley wrote, noting that a similar dispute occurred in Vermont in 1876.

Other disputes occurred throughout American history, such as both sides claiming to sign off on the winning candidate in Hawaii in the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
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https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-alternate-electors-history-1837242

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You realize that amounts to, "It was so stupid that nobody could have possibly taken it seriously; thus, we did nothing illegal"?

I mean, maybe that'll work. I think people disrupting the Capitol procedures (which they were as much as encouraged by Trump to do) is going to make that a tougher argument. Also, we're talking about official Congressional proceedings, not The Onion writing a parody article and demanding it be protected as Free Speech.

Quote: ams288

Where is your evidence of “Dems cheating?”

Oh, let me guess: it’s been scrubbed from the internet! lol

Or are you simply not intelligent enough to know what the definition of “cheating” is?

In the big cities run by Democrats, the rampant cheating is so widely accepted that I've seen respected pollsters just come out and say it

As mentioned, the mailed-out-mailed-in ballots are so subject to cheating that this is another thing that is universally accepted as something that is going to be a fact

Of course you can say, as you did, that you reject this and need better evidence than that. If it were available, even the courts that rule over these things, and almost by definition they don't do the investigating and thus are normally useless, even these would invalidate the fraudulent votes.

So we are at an impasse unless there is put in place better practices ... so why aren't we following the Carter-Baker recommendations????

another thing: it's too hard to get investigations into voter fraud. When you can get the FBI off it's dead ass in the matter, amazing things happen

1982 Illinois elections
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 1982_Illinois_elections
The grand jury concluded that 100,000 fraudulent votes had been cast in the city ... Authorities found massive fraud involving vote buying and ballots cast by others in the names of registered voters. In one case, a ballot punched for the Democratic slate had been tabulated 198 times

Quote: odiousgambit

In the big cities run by Democrats, the rampant cheating is so widely accepted that I've seen respected pollsters just come out and say it

As mentioned, the mailed-out-mailed-in ballots are so subject to cheating that this is another thing that is universally accepted as something that is going to be a fact

Of course you can say, as you did, that you reject this and need better evidence than that. If it were available, even the courts that rule over these things, and almost by definition they don't do the investigating and thus are normally useless, even these would invalidate the fraudulent votes.

So we are at an impasse unless there is put in place better practices ... so why aren't we following the Carter-Baker recommendations????

So you have absolutely no evidence, as expected.

But you will continue saying these lies because you know it deep down to be true.

Quote: Mission146

You realize that amounts to, "It was so stupid that nobody could have possibly taken it seriously; thus, we did nothing illegal"?

I mean, maybe that'll work. I think people disrupting the Capitol procedures (which they were as much as encouraged by Trump to do) is going to make that a tougher argument. Also, we're talking about official Congressional proceedings, not The Onion writing a parody article and demanding it be protected as Free Speech.

And what do you think the best opposing argument(s) would be before I post it (them)?

I'm researching it and don't want to prematurely post.

Quote: DoubleGold

And what do you think the best opposing argument(s) would be before I post it (them)?

I'm researching it and don't want to prematurely post.

I'm not an attorney, so it really doesn't matter what I think. I would just point to the evidence and demonstrate that, at the direction of Trump, many people seemed to take all aspects of it quite seriously.

Quote: ams288

you know it deep down to be true.

I think that's you

I notice you aren't commenting on the matter of very great probative value here, that the Dems want all the Carter-condemned things to stay in place

are they even going to honor him after he kicks the bucket? just another irritating old white guy, after all

Quote: odiousgambit

I think that's you

I notice you aren't commenting on the matter of very great probative value here, that the Dems want all the Carter-condemned things to stay in place

are they even going to honor him after he kicks the bucket? just another irritating old white guy, after all

Republicans never complain about cheating when they win any formerly Democrat district. Do Repubs vote with virgin fingers and piss holy water?

I think not.

Quote: odiousgambit

I think that's you

I notice you aren't commenting on the matter of very great probative value here, that the Dems want all the Carter-condemned things to stay in place

are they even going to honor him after he kicks the bucket? just another irritating old white guy, after all

Also, i would note, Carter was trying to fix problems that were already inherent in the overall system that were actually there. Republicans trying to fix some massive problem which they can't prove affects elections.

I say "massive problem" quite facetiously.