Trump's various attempts to challenge election results

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On Monday, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey added his name to the list of Republican officials who have acted admirably to uphold the rule of law following President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attacks on the election, appearing to ignore a phone call from the White House while certifying his state’s critical 11 Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. Along with a number of Federalist Society-aligned judges, other GOP governors, and lower-ranking Republican election officials, Ducey and others have earned this praise in the wake of Trump’s ongoing—and ultimately futile—effort to overturn the 2020 election. We can thank principled people on the right for helping to assure that we will have a peaceful transition of power between Trump and Biden. And given the extremely dangerous rhetoric still coming from some high-profile Trump supporters—including suggestions that the president declare martial law, call off elections, or have former government officials who have vouched for the election’s integrity shot—those with progressive politics and democratic ideals need the continued support of ideological adversaries who are similarly committed to the rule of law.

Although Trump’s attempts to overturn the election have been sometimes comically bad and based upon either unproven claims of fraud and irregularities or outlandish legal theories, the reason that these outrageous claims did not work is that most people across the political spectrum who play a role in the counting of ballots and in certifying the results have complied with the rule of law.

This includes Republican election clerks, secretaries of state such as Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger who has faced death threats, Aaron Van Langevelde of the Michigan state canvassing board who recognized he had no legal discretion not to certify Biden’s 154,000 win in the state, the Republican state legislators in states in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere who resisted Trump’s attempted gambit to have states appoint competing slates of electors to create a January battle over counting Electoral College votes in Congress, the Republican Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Doug Ducey, who rejected Trump’s calls to declare their states’ elections fraudulent despite Trump’s personal entreaties and attacks, and the federal and state judges of both parties who applied sound legal principles in rebuffing Trump’s flimsy lawsuits.

There are serious disputes over elections between those of us who support strong voting rights and those on the right who have resisted them. As I’ve detailed at Slate and elsewhere, Kemp himself engaged in very questionable practices when he served as Georgia’s secretary of state,

But when it comes to upholding the fundamental rule of law, many on the right deserve praise in this moment. And that might seem like a very low bar, but it is important to consider the alternative. In just the past few days, one of the president’s lawyers, Joe diGenova, said that former federal cybersecurity head Chris Krebs, a Republican who has vouched for the integrity of American elections, should be shot. Sidney Powell, a lawyer who had worked for the president on his election lawsuits until she was fired and is still bringing a crazy conspiracy-laden election lawsuit in Georgia against the election results, according to Politico, “retweeted a Twitter message that called on Trump to declare an insurrection, halt the planned convening of the Electoral College in each state in Dec. 14 and use ‘military tribunals’ to investigate alleged fraud related to the just-completed election.” Lin Wood, also involved in the litigation, said that the president should declare martial law and hold a new election. Fox Business host Lou Dobbs in an interview with Powell called for “drastic action” because of supposed crimes committed against Trump and the American people. That key Republican officials and conservative judges have not allowed themselves to be dragged along with the would-be mob is noteworthy.

We are not out of the woods yet, and it is going to take continued vigilance by all people of the left and right to assure continued support for the rule of law. Some of what we are hearing from the president’s most ardent supports is very ugly, antidemocratic, and anti-American. In this fight, we should be appreciative of Federalist Society voices and others standing up for what is right.

I did put forward an interesting question elsewhere on the site:
Given the "left" saw Mr Trump as so "evil", would they not be morally obliged to commit fraud in order to ensure he lost re-election? And, as an alternative, were they not to commit fraud in order to ensure he lost re-election, would that not demonstrate that they did not consider him as bad as they had been making out that he was for the past 4 years?

I did put forward an interesting question elsewhere on the site:
Given the "left" saw Mr Trump as so "evil", would they not be morally obliged to commit fraud in order to ensure he lost re-election? And, as an alternative, were they not to commit fraud in order to ensure he lost re-election, would that not demonstrate that they did not consider him as bad as they had been making out that he was for the past 4 years?

This is one of the actually interesting "video evidence" finds

Since my thread got closed for poo-flinging, I'll put this here if no one minds. This is one of the actually interesting "video evidence" finds, compared to the usual grainy ufo style videos where you can't tell what is going on.



It's Georgia. It appears to show ballots brought in hidden under a table being taken out and supposedly counted after counting was stopped. Odd is it not?

Edit: this twitter thread breaks down the various allegations in Georgia. It seems to have been sufficient for the governor to call for a signature audit (not a basic recount). If even a few of these allegations are true, the state will flip to Trump and open the proverbial can of worms. Every other suspect state will be forced into proper audits. Looks like it's happening as they say. Prepare for President Trump and potentially the demolition of the Democratic party.

https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/sta ... 2933805056

Where did the video actually come from? Who filmed it, and how were they in a position to film it? Also, who is the narrator? And who edited it?

The YouTube channel from where you got this does not contain any info about the provenance of the video.

That all depends on whether what is being alleged is actually what was happening. There's been an awful lot of misrepresentation in this election, particularly on Twitter. If this footage is submitted as evidence in a Court case and accepted as genuine, then we'll know. In the meantime it's pure speculation.

It's a clip from a longer presentation to Georgia's Senate Judiciary Subcomittee. The narrator is one Jackie Pick, a lawyer, but not in an official capacity on this occasion, she stresses to point out. There are several many hour long videos of the entire hearing, but Sky News Australia has a 30 minute cut of just her contribution.

https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6214020015001

While it may not be slam dunk proof of fraud, it is at the least evidence of an election-related crime. Votes, fraudulent or not, being counted after counting has been officially paused and observers sent away.

I still haven't seen any info about the provenance of the original video.

I'll look at this later, but I'm not inclined to trust Sky News.

Oh no it isn't. Again, it's only evidence of criminal activity if that's actually what was happening, which so far remains alleged rather than proven. How do we know what's being said about the footage is correct? We don't.

The only way it is not evidence is if this video is entirely staged. There are timestamps, aligning with the close of counting, which was widely reported - you see most of the counters and importantly the observers leave. Then a few people stay behind stuffing ballots into counting machines, unobserved. That's a federal crime right there. The boxes of ballots from under the mystery table is just icing on the cake. Their witnesses even appear on the cctv later at ~2am in accordance with their affidavits.

What if, for example, these were test ballots being used to check the machine calibration as a double-checking exercise, and the results from them weren't included in anything (for obvious reasons).

I have no idea if that's plausible btw, but similar things might be. Nothing is proven yet.