Why Thomas Jefferson Crops Up in Trump’s Arguments Over Fake Electors and Jan. 6
In 1801, after the young nation’s fourth election, Vice President Thomas Jefferson faced a choice in his constitutional role to certify the results: He could reject Georgia’s tally because the paperwork was defective—or he could accept the defective paperwork and set himself up for victory. More than two centuries later, that long-lost-to-history decision resurfaced as relevant to the aftermath of the 2020 election and the legal quagmire now surrounding former President Donald Trump.
On Jan. 6, 2021, it was Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, whose role was to certify the results of the electoral vote before a joint session of Congress as he faced intense pressure from Trump and his supporters to reject Electoral College tallies from key states and send them back to the legislatures, even though both the Electoral College count and the popular vote gave Biden his victory.
The pressure on Pence was the culmination of frenzied planning by Trump and his allies over how they could create a slate of alternate electors—state representatives picked by the party or candidate who formally cast presidential ballots based on the popular vote—from narrowly decided states to produce a Trump victory. Pence became the plotters’ last chance on the deadline day for certifying the election, making the vice president the target of Trump supporters as they stormed the Capitol and called on him to refuse to legally certify the election.
Pence stood his ground, saying he had no leeway under the Constitution to do anything other than conduct the process by which the results of the Electoral College were counted and certified. Trump’s and his allies’ actions are now at the heart of two criminal cases.
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