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![]() | A fact from Trump fake electors plot appeared on Wikipedia's
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| ![]() |
![]() | On 2 August 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved. The result of the discussion was Moved to Trump fake electors plot. |
Going to start this by expressing my love and appreciation for Wikipedia. I use it daily, for everything from a starting point for work related research tasks, to recreational learning about various historic or current topics. On everything from Napoleonic battles to particle physics. For context, this account was created in 2007, and I've been using Wikipedia since 2001.
Today I saw a ten minute news segment which touched on the "fake elector scheme," which I vaguely remember from the news cycle when it happened (which I was really into at the time -- I very closely followed the election on a day-to-day basis like many people) So, I hop on wikipedia to read about it in order to refresh my memory and maintain an informed opinion about reality.
To be 100% honest, this article reads like a propaganda piece for a particular narrative. Thank God for the talk page where I can get both sides of the issue.
This is clearly a polarizing subject with very strong opposing opinions, as the country is deeply divided on the fundamental question of whether Trump committed an insurrection with the help of rogue Republican state legislatures, or Biden committed a coup with the help of the Democrat party aligned intel agencies. I've never seen anything like this in life.
There was a time when Wikipedia was a neutral information repository, citing dispassionate news and textual sources, because in 2001 you could find sources that had not yet become overly politicized. There was a time when news desks for major networks lost money, on purpose, because the point of the news wasn't to make money -- it was for prestige. The money making arm of the corporation that owned the media company would fund the news desk, the news desk would win awards that fed back, or basically itself be an advertisement for the respectability of the network. The Internet changed this and the news suddenly was given a different role in the information ecosystem.
Today, everything has basically become yellow journalism, because the new business model in the social media age is everybody preaching to their niche choir setting up the other side with the greatest possible strawman to burn down. Or it has some other ideological agenda conditional to its funding. Following politics has always been a premier American pastime, so most of our lives have presently been roped into the daily cycle of confirmation bias, including quite sadly my beloved Wikpedia.
On this specific topic, the reality is the USA method for selecting the president is deliberately byzantine. I remember following Bush v Gore when it happened, and the legal conclusion of that affair was states have the right to send whatever electors they want, as long as the state follows its own constitution. And this fits with the design of the country at its founding to be a union of states. A state doesn't even need to have an public election, its own legislature could just decide who that state should vote for in the electoral college (which is what the electors are for). And this is exactly how it worked, until gradually states shifted to the current method, with the last holdout South Carolina stopped appointing electors in 1864. And ultimately, why Bush became president. If states have the right to appoint electors as they wish, then the outcome of the presidential election in a given state isn't actually material, unless it happens to be under state law. Hence, the outcome of the Bush v Gore, was that Florida had to follow its own election laws and nothing more. This is just facts.
So in a nutshell Trump lawyers apparently decided to mount a challenge by convincing legislatures in states which they thought (or claim they thought) election fraud happened to somehow appoint or send electors contrary the resultant outcome. And then, somehow force those states to either investigate the fraud, or simply appoint the electors (which again is how things worked in at least one state until 1864). It's not quite clear from the outside exactly what they were doing or their endgame, but it's something along these lines. Basically, lawyers either using or abusing the law, depending on who you ask.
Did it cross the line to be illegal? Does it rise to the level of fraud? Or, conversely, is it a legitimate constitutional check-and-balance on election fraud (whether or not you think it happened in this case, and whatever your feelings are about the current or previous president). These are questions for courts and constitutional scholars, not for talking heads on the media, decided by who has the most reach and can shout their opinions the loudest. And, sadly, the endless parade of people calling themselves constitutional lawyers and the like on those programs are just as bad. This needs to be decided by the US Supreme Court, or Congress.
The problem is, we are so politicized as a country, everyone wants to decide it in the court of public opinion, which is the court of talking points and political narratives. And even more unfortunately, Wikipedia and this page in particular seem to be roped into that arena, so when people like me hear the term "fake Trump electors" they come to this page and get one side of the story. That is how you manufacture consensus, as a propaganda tool.
Somewhat ironically, the language and wording of this page is so over-the-top biased and skewed to one side, it ends up being self-defeating. Because neutral people like me who come here just to learn about a thing they heard can see it for what it is. That is how I ended up on this talk page.
To be clear, I'm not blaming anyone or suggesting bad faith, since everyone has biases they aren't aware of, especially in this age, where nearly everything we read and hear has an agenda. So just writing out my honest opinion and reaction to the article as presented. Do with it as you wish.
Take care everyone! Lasati ( talk) 23:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)lasati
Biden committed a coup with the help of the Democrat party aligned intel agencies, they aren't going to be happy with our article and we shouldn't be trying to make them happy. – Muboshgu ( talk) 02:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
'quality newspapers' published the falsehood that it was proven that Covid could not have come from a lab? soibangla ( talk) 15:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
@ soibangla Regarding this diff where you deleted the entire section on Electoral College procedure in Background.
This entire article focuses on people alleged to have crafted a plot to circumvent and exploit the Electoral College procedure. It makes multiple references to minutia of Electoral College procedure, such as certificates of ascertainment, the Electoral Count Act, the deadlines of certification, the differences between authentic and alternate certificates, the vice president's role in counting certificates, the delivery of electoral ballots, exploiting contingent elections by lowering electoral count thresholds, etc. This entire controversy stems from how the electoral college process in American works.
It would be clearly useful to have a section that lays the relevant procedure out in a coherent manner so that readers can understand what the proper procedure is, how it contrasted with the fake electors scheme, and what elements were exploited to develop it. RS have made such explainers themselves when covering various portions of Trump's fake electors scheme, giving background context on the relevant electoral college procedure that it relates to. I'm struggling to comprehend the standard you are using to determine that this is not useful for the article, but that it is necessary to include lengthy content on news reports of people who may or may not be connected to the actual plan making comments and communications of undetermined notability. KiharaNoukan ( talk) 09:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
I've never liked the term plot. can we change it to scheme? soibangla ( talk) 04:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Currently, the Prosecutions section is a narrative. Since there are several prosecutions now, I suggest adding a table for case summaries. Alternatively, the Prosecutions section can move (and add) to 2021 United States Electoral College vote count#Aftermath. rootsmusic ( talk) 19:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Since this article is a narrative overview of the plot masterminded by several of Trump's lawyers, I suggest adding an annotated timeline as a supporting article. (Example: Planning of the January 6 United States Capitol attack is supported by Timeline of the January 6 United States Capitol attack.) Such an annotated timeline for this plot would split-off events from and reduce the length of the embedded timeline in Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. (One reference is Just Security's timeline [1].) rootsmusic ( talk) 03:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
length alone does not justify division or trimming, whereas the other is 21,000 and is in dire need of it. I'm also assuming not all of the November 2020 to January 2021 timeline is directly related to fake electors plot, so splitting the timeline up would make it incomplete. Whereas all of the Trump plot timeline is/should be part of the attempts to overthrow timeline. CommunityNotesContributor ( talk) 15:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Trump fake electors plot article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
Index,
1,
2Auto-archiving period: 180 days
![]() |
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | It is requested that an image or photograph of Trump fake electors plot be
included in this article to
improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific
media request template where possible.
Wikipedians in the United States may be able to help! The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites. |
![]() | A fact from Trump fake electors plot appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 9 September 2022 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | On 2 August 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved. The result of the discussion was Moved to Trump fake electors plot. |
Going to start this by expressing my love and appreciation for Wikipedia. I use it daily, for everything from a starting point for work related research tasks, to recreational learning about various historic or current topics. On everything from Napoleonic battles to particle physics. For context, this account was created in 2007, and I've been using Wikipedia since 2001.
Today I saw a ten minute news segment which touched on the "fake elector scheme," which I vaguely remember from the news cycle when it happened (which I was really into at the time -- I very closely followed the election on a day-to-day basis like many people) So, I hop on wikipedia to read about it in order to refresh my memory and maintain an informed opinion about reality.
To be 100% honest, this article reads like a propaganda piece for a particular narrative. Thank God for the talk page where I can get both sides of the issue.
This is clearly a polarizing subject with very strong opposing opinions, as the country is deeply divided on the fundamental question of whether Trump committed an insurrection with the help of rogue Republican state legislatures, or Biden committed a coup with the help of the Democrat party aligned intel agencies. I've never seen anything like this in life.
There was a time when Wikipedia was a neutral information repository, citing dispassionate news and textual sources, because in 2001 you could find sources that had not yet become overly politicized. There was a time when news desks for major networks lost money, on purpose, because the point of the news wasn't to make money -- it was for prestige. The money making arm of the corporation that owned the media company would fund the news desk, the news desk would win awards that fed back, or basically itself be an advertisement for the respectability of the network. The Internet changed this and the news suddenly was given a different role in the information ecosystem.
Today, everything has basically become yellow journalism, because the new business model in the social media age is everybody preaching to their niche choir setting up the other side with the greatest possible strawman to burn down. Or it has some other ideological agenda conditional to its funding. Following politics has always been a premier American pastime, so most of our lives have presently been roped into the daily cycle of confirmation bias, including quite sadly my beloved Wikpedia.
On this specific topic, the reality is the USA method for selecting the president is deliberately byzantine. I remember following Bush v Gore when it happened, and the legal conclusion of that affair was states have the right to send whatever electors they want, as long as the state follows its own constitution. And this fits with the design of the country at its founding to be a union of states. A state doesn't even need to have an public election, its own legislature could just decide who that state should vote for in the electoral college (which is what the electors are for). And this is exactly how it worked, until gradually states shifted to the current method, with the last holdout South Carolina stopped appointing electors in 1864. And ultimately, why Bush became president. If states have the right to appoint electors as they wish, then the outcome of the presidential election in a given state isn't actually material, unless it happens to be under state law. Hence, the outcome of the Bush v Gore, was that Florida had to follow its own election laws and nothing more. This is just facts.
So in a nutshell Trump lawyers apparently decided to mount a challenge by convincing legislatures in states which they thought (or claim they thought) election fraud happened to somehow appoint or send electors contrary the resultant outcome. And then, somehow force those states to either investigate the fraud, or simply appoint the electors (which again is how things worked in at least one state until 1864). It's not quite clear from the outside exactly what they were doing or their endgame, but it's something along these lines. Basically, lawyers either using or abusing the law, depending on who you ask.
Did it cross the line to be illegal? Does it rise to the level of fraud? Or, conversely, is it a legitimate constitutional check-and-balance on election fraud (whether or not you think it happened in this case, and whatever your feelings are about the current or previous president). These are questions for courts and constitutional scholars, not for talking heads on the media, decided by who has the most reach and can shout their opinions the loudest. And, sadly, the endless parade of people calling themselves constitutional lawyers and the like on those programs are just as bad. This needs to be decided by the US Supreme Court, or Congress.
The problem is, we are so politicized as a country, everyone wants to decide it in the court of public opinion, which is the court of talking points and political narratives. And even more unfortunately, Wikipedia and this page in particular seem to be roped into that arena, so when people like me hear the term "fake Trump electors" they come to this page and get one side of the story. That is how you manufacture consensus, as a propaganda tool.
Somewhat ironically, the language and wording of this page is so over-the-top biased and skewed to one side, it ends up being self-defeating. Because neutral people like me who come here just to learn about a thing they heard can see it for what it is. That is how I ended up on this talk page.
To be clear, I'm not blaming anyone or suggesting bad faith, since everyone has biases they aren't aware of, especially in this age, where nearly everything we read and hear has an agenda. So just writing out my honest opinion and reaction to the article as presented. Do with it as you wish.
Take care everyone! Lasati ( talk) 23:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)lasati
Biden committed a coup with the help of the Democrat party aligned intel agencies, they aren't going to be happy with our article and we shouldn't be trying to make them happy. – Muboshgu ( talk) 02:59, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
'quality newspapers' published the falsehood that it was proven that Covid could not have come from a lab? soibangla ( talk) 15:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
@ soibangla Regarding this diff where you deleted the entire section on Electoral College procedure in Background.
This entire article focuses on people alleged to have crafted a plot to circumvent and exploit the Electoral College procedure. It makes multiple references to minutia of Electoral College procedure, such as certificates of ascertainment, the Electoral Count Act, the deadlines of certification, the differences between authentic and alternate certificates, the vice president's role in counting certificates, the delivery of electoral ballots, exploiting contingent elections by lowering electoral count thresholds, etc. This entire controversy stems from how the electoral college process in American works.
It would be clearly useful to have a section that lays the relevant procedure out in a coherent manner so that readers can understand what the proper procedure is, how it contrasted with the fake electors scheme, and what elements were exploited to develop it. RS have made such explainers themselves when covering various portions of Trump's fake electors scheme, giving background context on the relevant electoral college procedure that it relates to. I'm struggling to comprehend the standard you are using to determine that this is not useful for the article, but that it is necessary to include lengthy content on news reports of people who may or may not be connected to the actual plan making comments and communications of undetermined notability. KiharaNoukan ( talk) 09:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
I've never liked the term plot. can we change it to scheme? soibangla ( talk) 04:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Currently, the Prosecutions section is a narrative. Since there are several prosecutions now, I suggest adding a table for case summaries. Alternatively, the Prosecutions section can move (and add) to 2021 United States Electoral College vote count#Aftermath. rootsmusic ( talk) 19:11, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Since this article is a narrative overview of the plot masterminded by several of Trump's lawyers, I suggest adding an annotated timeline as a supporting article. (Example: Planning of the January 6 United States Capitol attack is supported by Timeline of the January 6 United States Capitol attack.) Such an annotated timeline for this plot would split-off events from and reduce the length of the embedded timeline in Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election. (One reference is Just Security's timeline [1].) rootsmusic ( talk) 03:09, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
length alone does not justify division or trimming, whereas the other is 21,000 and is in dire need of it. I'm also assuming not all of the November 2020 to January 2021 timeline is directly related to fake electors plot, so splitting the timeline up would make it incomplete. Whereas all of the Trump plot timeline is/should be part of the attempts to overthrow timeline. CommunityNotesContributor ( talk) 15:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)