Bigfoot,

Loch Ness,

and "Fake" Electors

How the AJC and mainstream media are perpetuating blatant lies.

Republican Electors

Patriots Who Served.

The Republicans who gathered at the State Capitol on December 14, 2020 were the Republican nominees for Presidential elector. They were not self-proclaimed. They had been nominated by a unanimous vote of the State Executive Committee of the Georgia Republican Party more than eight months earlier on March 4, 2020. They had been certified to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on March 5, 2020. Their names had been published by the Secretary of State as qualified and nominated candidates. And under the plain language of the Georgia Election Code, they became "contingent" Presidential electors on December 4, 2020 when a lawsuit was filed contesting the certification of the 2020 Presidential election. Please click "read more" to see Expert Declaration and CV from Professor Todd Zywicki.

The Lawsuit

It's pretty simple to understand.

On December 4, 2020, President Trump, together with his campaign committee and Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, filed a lawsuit in Fulton Superior Court contesting the 2020 Presidential election. Under the Georgia Election Code, lawsuits contesting elections are required to be heard within twenty days of being filed. But twenty days later, on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2020, this particular lawsuit had not even been assigned to a judge who was eligible to hear it. In fact, this lawsuit was never heard. It was not scheduled for a hearing until January 8, 2021 - weeks after the statutory deadline and two days after Congress had counted the electoral votes and certified the result - at which point it was moot.

If you are a reader of Flipped, subscriber to the Atlanta Journal Constitution or regular consumer of mainstream media, you are likely under the misimpression that this lawsuit was "rejected" or "thrown out of the court." But the unreported truth is that this lawsuit was never decided by any court in Georgia. In fact, it was not given a single evidentiary hearing. You read that right - a lawsuit, filed by the President of the United States, contesting an election for the highest office in the land, was never given a single hearing.

That sounds like it might be a pretty big story. But instead of covering that story, the mainstream media came up with one of its own, and it is a doozy. The men and women who peacefully gathered at the State Capitol on December 14, 2020 to exercise their First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of their grievances have been turned into villains. They have been recast as "fake," "phony," "false," and "sham" electors. But the only thing fake in this story is the story itself.

The Precedent

It happened in Hawaii.

On November 28, 1960, Republican Richard Nixon was certified as having won the Presidential election in Hawaii. Supporters of Democrat John F. Kennedy filed a lawsuit contesting the election, alleging irregularities in the count. That lawsuit was still pending on December 19, 1960 when the Electoral Count Act required the Presidential electors to meet and cast their votes.

To preserve the remedy under the pending lawsuit and on the advice of their lawyers, the three Democratic electors - two of whom were retired federal judges and noted constitutional scholars - met at the Iolani Palace and cast electoral votes for Kennedy. They signed paperwork calling themselves the "duly and legally appointed and qualified" electors of the State of Hawaii who had been "certified by the Executive"- even though none of these statements were true when signed. They mailed this paperwork to Washington, D.C. the very next day while the litigation continued.

On December 30, 1960, Judge Ronald Jamieson ruled in favor of Kennedy and hailed the Democratic electors as heroes for having cast ballots on December 19 and mailed them to Washington, D.C., saying that their "genius" had preserved the votes of Hawaii in the Electoral College. On January 4, 1961, the Governor of Hawaii recertified the election for Kennedy and two days later the Democratic ballots cast on December 19 were counted by the Congress.

The Actual Envelope

The Contingent Electors

The Dems did the exact same thing.

The Republicans were not the only "contingent" electors who met at the State Capitol on December 14, 2020. The moment that the lawsuit contesting the Presidential election was filed, both the the Democratic elector nominees who had been certified as having been elected by Secretary of State Raffensperger and the Republican elector nominees who were contesting that election became contingent electors. None of the Democratic electors have been investigated or threatened with prosecution, nor should they be. Even though they too were contingent electors, like the Republicans, they were acting reasonably, lawfully, and necessarily to preserve the electoral votes of Joe Biden in the event that the pending Trump lawsuit was rejected.

Like the photos of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster,

the Bluestein photo is a hoax.

Greg Bluestein has repeatedly tweeted and retweeted the closed door photograph above as "proof" of his conspiracy theory that the contingent Republican electors held their meeting in secret, behind locked doors barring the press and public. In his book Flipped, Bluestein writes of a “clandestine meeting” held in a “locked room” at which “(Chairman David) Shafer and the Republicans holed up with him… were simply Trump allies who declared themselves electors with no legal basis.”

The Bluestein narrative is a lie. The meeting of the contingent Republican electors was open to the press and broadcast on Atlanta television. Metadata from the Bluestein photo shows that it was taken before 11:32 am on December 14, 2020 - a half hour before the meeting began, long before Chairman Shafer arrived at the Capitol and when the room was mostly empty except for a staffer setting up a printer.

But every good conspiracy theory needs a hoax photo, whether it is a man in a bigfoot costume or a dummy on the alien autopsy table. For this one, Greg Bluestein delivered.

Provisional voting is specifically allowed

by the Georgia Election Code

When a voter shows up at their precinct on Election Day but does not appear on the voter list or there is some other question about eligibility to vote, poll workers give that voter a provisional ballot. This allows the voter to cast a ballot, but it is decided later whether that ballot will count.

This is exactly what happened with Georgia’s Republican Electors. On December 14, 2020, with the outcome of the lawsuit contesting the election uncertain, they met and cast provisional or “contingent” electoral votes. Whether or not the votes would count would be decided on later once the outcome of the lawsuit was known.

"Horrific" Misconduct

Political motivation for

the investigation exposed

.

Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones filed a motion to disqualify Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis and her "Special Prosecutor" Nathan Wade from investigating his role as one of the contingent Republican electors, accusing them of politically motivated misconduct.

Willis used her title as District Attorney to host a campaign fundraiser for the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Charlie Bailey. Bailey then used the money to attack Jones as a "fake" elector. Her conflict of interest in pursuing the investigation was obvious.

The AJC predictably minimized the misconduct. Judge Robert McBurney, however, called it "horrific" and issued an order disqualifying Willis from investigating Jones. But he wrongly allowed her to continue the baseless and politically motivated investigation of the other contingent Republican electors.

They stood for YOU!

NowYOU stand for THEM!

The false media narrative and endless

"fake elector" mantra have encouraged local prosecutors to "investigate" and "target"

the patriots who served as contingent Republican electors.

The Georgia Republican Party is raising funds for their legal defense.

Beyond the pale"

What experts are saying.

Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent for The Washington Examiner, wrote this article rebutting the media coverage of the contingent Republican electors, dismissing the controversy as the "Democratic scandal dejour."

Former United States Attorney John Malcolm wrote this article defending Chairman David Shafer, saying his actions were "legally correct" and that indicting him or any of the contingent Republican electors would be "beyond the pale."

Interested in reading

the documents yourself?

Do not let The Atlanta Journal Constitution, other mainstream media outlets or even this website filter what you know. Read the documents for yourself at the link(s) below.

Read the declaration of Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University that the actions of the contingent Republican presidential electors in Georgia were "lawful, reasonable, proper, and necessary, and any suggestion that they could be 'criminal' ignores legal and historical precedent, the reasoned advice of legal counsel received, and the plain language of the Constitution, federal and Georgia law."

Read the original documents signed and submitted by the contingent Hawaii Democratic electors in 1960 that served as the model for the documents submitted by the contingent Georgia electors in 2020. The contingent Hawaii Democratic electors cast ballots for John F. Kennedy even though Richard Nixon had been certified as having won the 1960 Presidential election in Hawaii.

Read the letter by attorneys Holly Pierson and Craig Gillen rebutting the lies of The Atlanta Journal Constitution and showing how the actions of David Shafer and the other contingent Republican electors were expressly authorized by federal and state law.

Read the follow up letter by Craig Gillen, Holly Pierson and Anthony Lake showing that not only were the actions of David Shafer and the other contingent Republican electors lawful, they are constitutionally protected.

Interested in reading

the documents yourself?