Michigan Democrats have brought up some of Donald Trump’s alternate 2020 electors on felony charges. But just as the Democrats went from screeching about an illegitimate election in 2016 to condemning “election denial” as a shocking evil in 2020, the Democrats appear to have forgotten how Democrat John F. Kennedy used alternate electors in the 1960 presidential election. They also forget how Democrats tried to pressure electors into flipping the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton.
Just the News reported on July 18 that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 alternate Michigan Trump electors with felonies. Nessel alleged that the electors submitted false certificates insisting that Trump actually won Michigan (before election fraud) and that they were, therefore, legitimate electors. Alternate electors in Arizona and Georgia could face the same charges, according to Steve Bannon’s War Room on July 19.
The odd thing about these cases is that a Democrat presidential candidate used alternate electors in at least one instance before: during the highly controversial 1960 election. The Democrats were accused of using fraud to win in that election too, and presidential candidate John F. Kennedy used an alternate slate of electors in Hawaii. PJ Media’s Rick Moran previously explained (quoting Reason.com):
In the meantime, however, Electoral College nominees from both parties convened on December 19, 1960, the deadline that year. Both groups signed certificates identifying themselves as “duly and legally appointed and qualified” members of the Electoral College, and both sets of certificates were sent to Washington, D.C…
On January 4, 1961, a state judge, Ronald Jamieson, retroactively validated the Democrats’ seemingly premature certificates. According to Jamieson’s ruling, it was crucial that the electors had convened on December 19, even though their certificates contradicted the official results at the time. Two days later, while overseeing the congressional tally of electoral votes as vice president, Nixon acknowledged that he had received three sets of certificates from Hawaii: the dueling December 19 slates, plus a subsequent Democratic slate that Hawaii’s governor certified after the recount. Nixon concluded that the third slate, comprised of the same Democrats who had signed the December 19 certificates, “properly and legally portrays the facts with respect to the electors chosen by the people of Hawaii.”
As I noted above, allegations of Kennedy’s election fraud and collusion with organized crime/mafia to win the presidency continue to this day. Some evidence indicates that both Illinois and Texas (especially Illinois) went to Kennedy as the result of voter fraud. But what is certain is Kennedy’s alternate-electors gambit.
But that’s not the only time Democrats have exhibited hypocrisy related to the Electoral College. Perhaps some of you remember what happened in 2016? Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), more than 50 electors, and multiple Hollywood celebrities were among those who tried to pressure electors into overturning Trump’s election win by a coup of the Electoral College in Hillary Clinton’s favor. Where was the outrage about “election denial” then?
One group of electors tried to bring together 135 Republicans and 135 Democrats behind a compromise Republican like Mitt Romney or John Kasich, The Daily Signal explained. Another proposal was to try and win 37 electors away from Trump. That would have put Trump below the needed 270 electors to win, and the election would then have gone to the House of Representatives.
“In addition, Clinton electors in California, Colorado, and Washington filed lawsuits to overturn state restrictions on electors from voting however they wish,” The Daily Signal noted. “This was supposed to set a legal precedent to allow Trump electors to break.”
That emphasizes how little Democrats care about honest election wins, only about achieving their own political goals. But then again, Democrats have been using double standards for elections for over a hundred years.
So the Democrats either need to face up to their past or stop targeting Trump’s alternate electors. Such partisan political targeting bodes ill for the 2024 presidential election.