@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/
@KDbyProxy @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset They had no right to submit it under GA law. They committed crimes under GA law.
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset I've acknowledged that about GA law. I'm arguing, as to what Trump's electors did, GA law is preempted, as GA law may not make criminal what the federal ECA & 1A authorize. GA may not use its criminal laws to be the arbiter of what is or isn't true in a petition to Congress… 1/
@KDbyProxy @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset You’re ignoring 3 U.S. Code §5, which provides that state “laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors” govern the determination of the state’s electors, i.e., the state’s election code, which the “alternative electors” violated at every step.
@NastyOldWomyn @AnthonyMKreis @RichardFausset I am ignoring nothing in ECA Sec 5. But Sec 5 needs to be read in concert with the rest of the ECA, especially in concert with Sec 15. Sec 5 is the so-called safe-harbor provision directed to the States, not its electors.