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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   29163 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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It's not a crime to falsely claim "I work for the Red Cross".

It's a crime to falsely claim "I work for the Red Cross and we're collecting donations, how much would you like to give?"

Is it a crime to say that the elections are rigged and actually the other candidate won?

Nope.

It's a crime to falsely say "I am a duly elected and qualified elector from the state of Michigan and I cast my vote in the electoral college for Donald Trump" with the intention of subverting the will of the voters of Michigan though.

Regarding "subverting the will of the voters", then what is your opinion on the plea for faithless electors in the 2016 election to overturn the results for Trump?

On November 16, 2016, journalist Bill Lichtenstein published an article entitled, "The Way Out of Trumpland: Hail Mary Pass to Save the Nation" in the Huffington Post, detailing the plans by presidential elector Micheal Baca to seek to derail Trump's ascent to the presidency by convincing Democratic and Republican presidential electors to vote for a more moderate candidate on December 19, 2016, when the Electoral College voted. Lichtenstein's article soon went viral, and on December 5, 2016, several members of the electoral college, seven from the Democratic Party and one from the Republican Party, publicly stated their intention to vote for a candidate other than the pledged nominee at the Electoral College vote on December 19, 2016.

Should we be charging Mr. Lichtenstein with a crime for publicising an attempt to thwart the will of voters?

...sigh.

Here's the thing with crimes. You need to satisfy all the elements of an offence to have committed the offence. You can't just say "Oh hey this one thing this other guy did is kind of like a crime in one individual way, better lock him up."

Bill Lichtenstein did not violate any statute when he wrote that article, so he should not be penalised. If you disagree, point to the specific charge you think he should be prosecuted for and the elements of that charge and explain how you think they can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

You need to satisfy all the elements of an offence to have committed the offence.

This would be a conspiracy charge.

Which statute should Mr Lichtenstein be charged under and who has he allegedly conspired with?

How come?

And how is that not a subversion of the electoral college in the first place if it's accurate?

Because there's laws against it.

All 16 individuals were each charged with eight felonies: Two counts of forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, two counts of election law forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit election law forgery, one count of publishing a counterfeit record and one count of conspiring to publish a counterfeit record.

I am just endlessly puzzled by the American electoral system. How in the hell can a State pass a law to restrict how someone they nominate to a Federal body votes? How is that in any way constitutional? It doesn't make any sense to me.

So if that's true, could, say Texas pass a law that forces all their house representatives or senators to vote a certain way?

I think we've gotten our wires crossed here. I'm talking about someone trying to submit false electoral votes when they are not in fact a member of the electoral college. You seem to be talking about someone who is a member of the electoral college but votes differently to how they were supposed to.

That's also breaking the law in most (all?) states, but it's breaking a different law. And yes, it's constitutional to enforce penalties against faithless electors, as the Supreme Court unamimously ruled.

Right this makes more sense.

Except the faithless elector bit, that's coup level nonsense on the face of it by anything of what I've read about why the federalists wanted the EC to exist in the first place.

I have of course no reason to doubt that you're accurately portraying that decision but I'm going to have to read that just to understand how they could even argue something like that.

This is probably the money quote:

(a) Article II, §1 gives the States the authority to appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” This Court has described that clause as “conveying the broadest power of determination” over who becomes an elector. McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 27. And the power to appoint an elector (in any manner) includes power to condition his appointment, absent some other constitutional constraint.

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