This is why the Democrat-controlled Congress in 2022 changed the language of 3 U.S. Code § 15 - Counting electoral votes in Congress to remove all references to "Alternate" and "Competing" slates of Electors.
Here is what 3 U.S. Code § 15 - Counting electoral votes in Congress said on November 1, 2020:
...If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed......but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed...
...and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State...
At the time of the 2020 election, US CODE for counting the Electoral College vote anticipated the case of multiple slates of Electors being submitted.
"3 U.S. Code § 15 - Counting electoral votes in Congress" laid out the process for Congress to decide which of multiple slates to accept and count. Nowhere did US Code criminalize the sending of competing slates of Electors.
Democrats must have been aware of this, because they removed all of this language from 3 U.S. Code § 15 for future Presidential elections.
And now they are indicting Trump allies for submitting alternative slates of Electors that the US CODE of 2020 permitted.
PART 2
When the Democrat-controlled Congress removed all language regarding receiving multiple slates of Electors, the also repealed in its entirety 3 U.S. Code § 2.Failure to make choice on prescribed day. This section allowed the state legislature to choose its Electors in the event that the election was not resolved ON ELECTION DAY.
Original text of 3 U.S. Code § 2.Failure to make choice on prescribed day:
Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.
In states where the Democrats were holding up counting the votes, taking days to receive mail-in votes, looking to disqualify votes, etc., it was US CODE that the state legislatures could put an immediate stop to it and simply declare the Electors on their own.
It's too bad that Republican-controlled state legislatures didn't use this power, or at least speak out in defense of people claiming to be alternative electors. All it would have taken from such states is a vote of the legislature in support of the alternative slate at any point prior to meeting in the Electoral College.
By removing this section from Title 3, Democrats have legalized delaying the returns for weeks while they keep finding votes.
-PJ
As Trump gets stronger and stronger, Biden faces a real
problem: looking like a pygmy raising his fist at a mountain.
Not the image you’d want to project to voters.
Why would the US Code criminalize sending competing slates of Electors? It’s a State issue. The Defendants in Arizona were charging with violating Arizona law.
A group of people meeting in a room doesn’t equal a Legislature unless it… really is the Legislature.
In fact, not one state - even those with Republican controlled Legislatures - agreed to send a competing slate of electors, ostensibly because it was so incredibly zany.
And I think it’s possible that the recent changes made to 3 U.S.C 15 are unconstitutional.
Thanks for this post.