GOP Electors Indicted For Trying To Steal Last Election Won't Try To Steal This One, Pinky Swear
At least not in the way they tried last time.
One issue we would love to see the next president and Congress work on is providing more resources for convicted criminals who have served their sentences. Recidivism rates in this country are ridiculous. The Justice Department released a study last year showing that in 24 states, 43 percent of released prisoners were rearrested within one year. Over a 10-year span, that number climbed to 82 percent. These numbers are a pretty good indicator that American prisons are not quite the deterrent society might wish.
Which brings us to this story from POLITICO about how many of the potential Republican electors in the seven swing states are performing this duty even though they are under felony indictment for signing fake electoral certificates in 2020.
This is not an apples-to-apples comparison, since the cases of these people have not yet been resolved through either a plea bargain or a guilty verdict at trial. Still, if there is one rule we think should apply to electors, it is this: if you are under felony indictment for trying to steal the last election, you lose the privilege of being an elector in this one. In fact, you should be grateful you can at least still vote, since you won’t lose that privilege until after you are convicted.
Politico reports that of the 93 potential Republican electors in the seven battleground states, eight of them are under indictment for participating in the Trumpian scheme in 2020 that has kept both prosecutors and defense attorneys employed for four years. Another five electors also signed fake certificates but were never charged with it.
This means that roughly one in five of this year’s battleground GOP electors participated in the Stop the Steal scheme. And the guy in whose name they signed those fake certification is on the ticket again, and making all sorts of inane noises with his mouth-hole about how Democrats are trying to steal the election again.
Furthermore,
A significant share of these electors come from within the official state party apparatuses, including party chairs from Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.
Can’t be a high-level official in any Republican party apparatus if you don’t agree with Donald Trump that Sleepy Joe stole your rightful place in the White House when Soros operatives used Chinese spy satellites to rig the Dominion voting machines, or whatever the current theory is.
One of the fake electors under indictment who is participating again is Hank Choate from Michigan. His lawyer told Politico he doesn’t see the problem:
An attorney for Choate, David Kallman, said he didn’t see a problem with him serving as an elector again, given that he was chosen at the state party convention. […]
“This election cycle doesn’t have anything to do with the last election cycle,” Kallman said. “If Kamala Harris wins in Michigan, I can guarantee you my client won’t be signing any alternate slate or doing anything like what happened last time. One can rest assured that.”
Shockingly, we do not feel we can just simply believe Mr. Kallman is saying here. That his client was still chosen as an elector despite his past actions indicates that Republicans in the swing states simply don’t take any of this particularly seriously. (That they lack the moral compass of rabid alley cats was already a given.)
We’ll rest assured when Kamala Harris’s hand comes off the Bible, thank you very much.
Georgia’s slate of electors includes people who believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories, like this charmer:
Susan Voyles, a poll manager in 2020 who was fired after making debunked claims that dozens of absentee ballots were fraudulent. Voyles recently resurfaced as a defense witness in the bar discipline proceedings for Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who Trump nearly installed as attorney general to help effectuate his plans in 2020.
Voyles testified in Clark’s disbarment hearing this past March, where she told the panel of lawyers deciding Clark’s fate that despite her claims having been debunked, she still believed fraud had occurred in Georgia. “I’m not very technical,” she testified while giving her version of how she thinks voting machines work.
On the other hand, these people are all returning to the scene of their crimes in the name of an actual convicted felon who is somehow still their party’s nominee for president. We don’t know why we could have expected better, though we also think America deserves that.
[POLITICO]
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One thing that high school civics class didn't teach was how so much of how government works depends on the belief that officials would be faithfully carrying out their duties and not attempting to abuse their position in order to commit crimes.
Look, I can't deal with this shit now. I'm glad there are lawyers and Dems prepping for this shit, but I'm barely keeping my shit together as it is about tomorrow. I'm hoping Americans settle the matter tomorrow because I can't take much more of this.