The Citizens’ Voice on the the fake elector issue:
Former U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta of Hazleton and 19 other Republican activists, who falsely posed as presidential electors following the 2020 election, likely will not face state-level forgery charges. But they still should be held accountable.
In Michigan, state prosecutors have charged 16 Republican fake electors with felony forgery for exactly the same conduct — signing documents as duly designated Electoral College electors even though Democratic President Joe Biden won the state.
The principal difference in the unprincipled conduct is that the Pennsylvania fake electors included a caveat that they should be considered the duly designated electors if a court invalidated Biden’s legitimate slate of electors. The fake electors signed their documents Dec. 14, 2020, after multiple state and federal courts had rejected most of Trump’s specious claims to have won Pennsylvania. The Michigan fake electors, and those in several other states, sent the documents to Washington as if Trump had won that state. Fake electors in Nevada, like their fellow pretenders in Pennsylvania, included a caveat.
The fake elector scam was part of a larger effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol amid Congress’ formal joint session to count state-certified electoral votes.
Apologists for the fake electors note that Josh Shapiro, now governor and then-attorney general, found that the caveat attached to the fake documents rendered the conduct less than illegal under state law — even though, as Shapiro said, “their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy.”
The fake elector scam is part of special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection. Barletta and his fellow fake electors should not pretend now that mere statelevel “legality” is the issue. Having done the wrong thing, they should now cooperate fully with federal investigators unraveling the planned effort to overturn a presidential election.