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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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I'm pretty sure at least some of the 2016 people caught a fine over it (WA maybe) -- anyways there was a massive public PR blitz trying to convince electors to flip, so were those people guilty of conspiracy to insurrect?

Again, not quite but getting pretty close. Conspiracy requires agreement, that's tricky to have with just 1-way communication.

They had, like a webpage and stuff, I can assure you that multiple people agreed this was a good idea -- if they failed to convince enough electors, this just means it was "not a good coup attempt", no?

You'd need to show agreement between the agitators and the actors in order to tarnish the agitators with the crimes of the actors, is my point. Usually it's not a crime to say someone else should do something illegal if there's no provable connection between your speech and their action.

However if you have for example a conversation where someone says to a Trump elector "I think we can get enough defectors to keep Trump out of office, you vote against him and I'll work on convincing others to do the same" and the elector says "ok", that I think could be successfully prosecuted under the same "conspiracy to deny people's rights to have their votes counted" charge that has been levied against Trump.

Aren't Trump and a bunch of people currently charged with a similar sort of (failed) conspiracy involving a attempt to get Georgia election officials to do stuff that they never did? Anyways, the electors who did vote faithlessly would seem to be participants in the (ineffective) 2016 conspiracy?

I think you need to be a lot more specific about what crimes you are alleging based on what actions. Trump has been charged in Georgia with solicitation of violation of oath of a public officer. Those charges are based on direct communications he made to elected Georgia officials. I'm not aware of a similar direct communication on the part of the so-called "Hamilton Electors" scheme soliciting a violation of oath by a Georgia public officer, but do inform me if you know of one.

As for the electors who did vote faithlessly, most of them defected from Clinton and therefore actually strengthened Trump's electoral vote margin. The two Trump electors who defected were from Texas, which did not have a law binding electors to their pledged candidates. Of course none of that precludes them from being involved in a conspiracy to illegally prevent Trump from taking office, but neither do their actions substantiate one. You'd need to make that case on the basis of communications that they had with others, which I have no knowledge of.

If you want to continue to ask "what about X?" please specify the person you think should be charged, the crime they should be charged with, and the evidence that you think proves all elements of that charge beyond a reasonable doubt. If you can't make the case, well, don't be surprised when a prosecutor doesn't make it either.