'Doubling down on things that aren’t true': RNC ripped over 'fake electors' resolution

03 February 2024

A resolution passed at the Republican National Committee's (RNC) recent winter meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada shows that the question of whether the party accepts that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election is still a very divisive topic among Republicans.

The Washington Post reported on the resolution, which states the RNC will continue to support fake electors currently embroiled in criminal investigations in multiple states around the country. However, that resolution notably included language like putting the word "vocally" before support (rather than financially, for example) and the word "lawfully" when describing Trump electors from states that then-candidate Joe Biden won in 2020.

RNC committeeman Tyler Bowyer of Arizona authored the resolution, and told the Post that it aims to both "identify the awareness and involvement of the RNC" and "ensure that the RNC is vocally and morally supporting those who have been targeted by radicals with an ultimate hope that they can be financially sustained." However, Bowyer's resolution was met with skepticism by other RNC members, who questioned the political wisdom behind it.

"They stuck in the world lawful next to the word alternate electors, I don’t know what that is," New Jersey-based RNC committeeman Bill Palatucci told the Post.

Because presidential electors are only lawful if they are representing the candidate and party that won a majority of the state's voters, Republican electors from swing states Biden won have been prosecuted in several states — including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin — for various crimes, including forgery. Some GOP electors from Biden states have said that they were encouraged to sign paperwork falsely stating they were the presidential electors of that state at the behest of the Trump campaign.

Jeff Mandell — an attorney representing Biden's electors in Wisconsin — told the Post that it doesn't appear the RNC has been "chastened by the aftermath" of fake elector prosecutions.

"It’s not lawful action," Mandell told the publiction. "In fact, the 10 fraudulent electors in Wisconsin admit as part of their settlement ‘we were not the duly elected presidential electors for the state of Wisconsin and we said we were.’ So the resolution is just doubling down on things that aren’t true... [T]he Republican Party institutionally appears to be doubling down, already planning on the things that they’re going to do if they lose."

Click here to read the Post's full report (subscription required).

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