If the last two election cycles have proven anything, it’s that Democrats hold an undeniable double standard when it comes to objecting to elections.
The radically different treatment Republicans receive when contesting poorly administered elections intensified this week when Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 Republican electors in her state for participating in what she deemed a “false electors scheme.” Defendants, all 55 years or older, each face eight various conspiracy and forgery felony counts that carry a sentence of five to 14 years in prison each.
“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” Nessel, an avid anti-“election denier” activist, said in a statement. “Every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed, or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened.”
The corporate media hailed Nessel’s allegations as a “righteous prosecution” and “compelling.” History, however, shows the charges are nothing more than a political ploy to advance the left’s war on anyone who questions election results or seeks solutions to preserve election integrity.
In fact, attacks on the Trump electors in Michigan, a state where election fraud was reported in both 2020 and 2022, come from the same party and its institutional allies that formally objected to every GOP presidential certification this century and shamelessly attempted to turn electors against their political enemy Trump in 2016.
Sanctimonious Scrambling
As soon as it was clear that Donald Trump, despite the deep state’s best efforts to hoax him out of the running, would become the 45th president of the United States, Democrats and their allies scrambled to influence electors to reject Americans’ wishes.
Corporate media quickly rose to the top as the loudest voice calling for electoral disobedience. Articles demanding state electors “prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office” and overrule Americans to install Hillary Clinton as president popped up in the pages of The Atlantic, The Washington Post, the Daily Beast, Vox, and Time.
The New York Times even published an article from a Texas-based Republican elector explaining “Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump.”
“The Electoral College is essentially an undemocratic system that’s been jury-rigged to make it somewhat more democratic,” another Vox article asserted to reassure any skeptics.
These last-ditch attempts to keep Trump out of the White House were eagerly amplified by people like MSNBC’s Joy Reid and NYT’s Jonathan Weisman, in tweets collated by journalist Michael Tracey.
Propaganda press puppets such as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, WaPo’s EJ Dionne, and NYT’s Paul Krugman added their two cents about why electors should act on their open disdain for a Trump presidency on Twitter and on TV.
Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign who later bragged about her role in meddling with the 2016 election by spreading the Russia collusion hoax, also joined in on the dogpile.
Clinton’s top political adviser John Podesta urged a foreign intervention intelligence briefing for electors prior to their vote, hoping that news about Russia would fuel the campaign’s efforts to question the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.
Petitions calling on electors to “Make Hillary Clinton President” made their rounds on the internet. These were promoted by celebrities such as singer Pink and their sentiments echoed by movie star Mark Ruffalo.
Video ads of celebrities pleading and pressuring electors to “prevent an unfit candidate from becoming president” by voting against Trump also circulated.
“You have position, the authority, and the opportunity to go down in the books as an American hero who changed the course of history,” the activists claimed in one “Unite For America” campaign video.
When leftists’ partisan ploy to swindle electors didn’t work, they turned to congressional Democrats to object to Trump’s presidential certification. Multiple Democrats attempted to verbally object to the electoral votes from multiple states until then-Vice President Joe Biden was forced to quiet his colleagues’ ramblings about voting machines and Russia collusion to proceed with formally handing Trump the presidency.
Even after that, prominent Democrats such as former President Jimmy Carter and failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton supported the theory that Trump was illegitimately elected. Polls showed 42 percent of Americans thought the same.
No Such Thing As ‘False Electors’
In her charges, Nessel repeatedly painted the Michigan defendants as “false elector” co-conspirators who participated in a “desperate effort” to “interfere with and overturn our free and fair election process, and along with it, the will of millions of Michigan voters.” Legally, however, there’s no such thing as “false electors.”
“There were contingent Republican electors named consistent with legal precedent to preserve the still ongoing legal challenges to the validity of Georgia’s certified vote,” my colleague Margot Cleveland explained in May when corporate media tried to smear Republican electors in the Peach State.
A similar elector swap to those in Michigan and Georgia happened in Hawaii in 1960. As Cleveland pointed out, it received praise instead of scrutiny because Democrats and their preferred candidate came out on top.
After Richard Nixon was initially declared the victor in Hawaii in 1960, both Nixon’s and John F. Kennedy’s electors decided to meet and “cast their votes for President and Vice President, and certified their own meeting and votes.” The three Hawaii electors, all Democrats, cast their votes for Kennedy.
When state circuit court Judge Ronald Jamieson eventually ruled Kennedy the winner of the presidency, Cleveland said he “stressed the importance of the Democrat electors having met on Dec. 19, as prescribed by the Electoral Count Act, to cast their ballots in favor of Kennedy.”
“That step allowed the Hawaii governor to then certify Kennedy as the winner of Hawaii’s three electoral votes and, in turn, Congress to count Hawaii’s electoral votes in favor of Kennedy,” she continued.
The stark difference between how Democrats and Republicans are treated on the elector issue merely confirms Americans’ worst fears about the nation’s two-tiered system of justice.
More Democrats denied that former President Donald Trump won the 2016 election than the people who claimed President Joe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected in 2020 — but it’s Republicans who face jail time for expressing concern.
If you’re a loyal leftist partisan harping on voting machines and Russian “hacking,” objecting to every GOP victory, and demanding electors vote against the will of the people, you’re a hero and protector of democracy. If you do the same to the benefit of a Republican candidate, you’ve fomented a “coup attempt” and betrayed the soul of the nation.
At a time when the justice system is weaponized against Trump and his followers, that’s a damning double standard that not even the most corrupt, partisan actors can ignore.
