@AnthonyMKreis @NastyOldWomyn @RichardFausset B/c this is Twitter, NG: The following is not a defense of what the Trump electors did; these are technical legal points. Is it clear that Georgia has criminal jurisdiction here? The Trump electors didn't interfere with the election of or voting by the Biden electors. 1/
@AnthonyMKreis @NastyOldWomyn @RichardFausset If Congress had counted the votes of the Trump electors rather than those of the legitimate Biden electors, the voters of Georgia would suffered an injury, but is that legally enough? Considering the ECA anticipates receipt by Congress of documents merely... 2/
@AnthonyMKreis @NastyOldWomyn @RichardFausset … purporting to be proper certificates, and instructs Congress to decide whether count them, I think it's (at best) unclear if what anyone did to back the submission by Trump's GA electors is a federal crime, but if it nevertheless could be a crime in GA, I don't know. 3/3
@KDbyProxy @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset The actions of the fake electors would also be governed by their respective state election codes.
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset Of course Trump's GA electors were wrong. Trump lost. But they still had a 1A right to petition Congress to claim Trump won. AND unless they went through the steps they did, if Congress did decide Trump had won, there could not have been redress w/o a cert from Trump's electors.
@KDbyProxy @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset They weren’t “petitioning.” They made several false representations under the election code and they filed false certifications, as well. Read the GA election code: the steps electors are required to take under it are laid out in detail.
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset As far as I know they made one factually incorrect claim: That they were "duly elected and qualified Electors". They didn't submit a false tally, or a false claim they'd been appointment by the governor, or a false claim of when or where they met. They did what they had to do 1/
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset to meet the reqs of the ECA. And as the ECA has a process for considering "papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes", that suggests people have a right to submit such papers. In any election contest the losing candidates must necessarily claim to have been 2/
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset duly elected, which is what Trump's GA electors did. If GA law is in conflict with the ECA on that, the ECA prevails. I'm not (yet) saying this argument is clearly the better argument, but it is substantial and should be heard. 3/3
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset I have read the GA Code on this, and as I tweeted some months ago, it does (on its face) outlaw what Trump's electors did. 4/3
@KDbyProxy @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset The GA Election Code requires that the Governor certify the slate of electors, not the electors themselves. Under the GA Election Code, the Governor submits the certificate of the electors, not the electors themselves, so under GA law, what was submitted was fraudulent.
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset Yes, but in their submission, Trump's electors did not claim to have been certified by the governor. As for the votes OF the electors, the ECA states they shall be submitted by the electors, which is what Trump's electors did.