certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.
c. Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.
d. Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.
e. Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
f. Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.
The Federal Government Function
9. The federal government function by which the results of the election for President of the United States are collected, counted, and certified was established through the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act (ECA), a federal law enacted in 1887. The Constitution provided that individuals called electors select the president, and that each state determine for itself how to appoint the electors apportioned to it. Through state laws, each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia chose to select their electors based on the popular vote in the state. After election day, the ECA required each state to formally determine—or “ascertain”—the electors who would represent the state’s voters by casting electoral votes on behalf of the candidate who had won the popular vote, and required the executive of each state to certify to the federal government the identities of those electors. Then, on a date set by the ECA, each state’s ascertained electors were required to meet and collect the results of the presidential election—that is, to cast electoral votes based on their state’s popular vote, and to send their electoral votes, along with the state executive’s
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