It actually is true that there are "lots of sworn first-person statements, which aren't hearsay." This isn't to say there are none that are hearsay.
> I haven't combed through every piece of evidence in every case, but a lot of "sworn first-person statements" basically amounted to hearsay or other statements that could not legally be sustained as evidence.
Right, and we could ignore them and talk about the ones where people testify to things that happened to them or in their presence but its much easier to respond to evidence you don't like by ignoring it and debunking "evidence" that's easy to respond to.
> The first set of cases did reach that stage
I'm not sure what you're referring to as "the first set of cases" but many of the cases were dismissed before evidence was heard. That means you can't faithfully dismiss the evidence on the basis of a dismissed court case because the court never looked at the evidence.
> The people who are alleging this conspiracy--first and foremost Trump himself--are unwilling to sustain any evidence to the contrary.
I disagree and if you could present evidence to the contrary we could perhaps resolve this.
> The Trump campaign and affiliates have lost 62 lawsuits in the past two months (and that's not counting subsequent losses on appeal).
Refer to my statement above. Most of those never even examined the evidence.
> For the first time in 230 years, a mob has broken into Congress
Its not that big of a deal, the last time a mob broke into congress was 2018.
> has broken into Congress to commit sedition
Actually they are trying (in vain) to avoid disenfranchisement. Or if you prefer not to appear to take a position on the object-level issue, its merely a "mostly peaceful protest."
> Why? It's not because we didn't demonstrate the concerns were being taken seriously.
that most certainly is why.
> It's because way too many people were willing to indulge a delusional conspiracy theory that was ungrounded in truth, and to pretend that frivolous lawsuits that were clearly contrary to all prior precedent fanned [2] that delusion.
I like how you compared the idea that people might cheat in an election to a delusion, when people cheat in elections all the time and its probably more properly considered delusional when someone insists (without evidence) that there was no fraud and all these people asserting fraud on the basis of evidence are delusional.
> If two or more persons in any State or Territory [...] conspire to [...] by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, [...] they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
Would that apply to conspiracy to violate election law?
They broke the law. They committed sedition--I copy-pasted the actual definition of the law. It doesn't matter why they were trying to break law, they still violated the law. They ignored all proper legal avenues to take the law into their own lands. You cannot in good faith ever claim to support the rule of law if you support what they did.
Let me put it like this: if I were to kill the President, I would be a murderer. It doesn't matter if I think he's a deranged nutcase whose continued presidency would irrevocably damage the country: I would still be committing first-degree murder, and will still deserve nothing less than to suffer the full consequences of that crime.
> Would that apply to conspiracy to violate election law?
There are only 51 electoral vote certificates for the 2020 presidential election. There were only ever 51 electoral vote certificates. Some cosplayers did pretend to make electoral vote certificates to compete against, but cosplaying an electoral vote does not meet the legal requirements to create a valid electoral vote certificate. Congress's job is to count those electoral vote certificates. 3 USC §15 lays out what Congress was supposed to do yesterday. There is nothing that they did that would violate their actions.
I'm not going to respond to all of your points because my blood pressure can't take this, but I will close out with this comment: what happened yesterday is the electoral equivalent of lynching. Even if you think it is justified, it is still an extralegal attempt by a mob to execute their will, damning the due process of anyone they come across.
This presumes that your perspective on the alleged fraud is factually correct. If we don't presume the facts of the matter one way or the other, it looks like they may have been petitioning their government for redress.
> Let me put it like this: if I were to kill the President, I would be a murderer. It doesn't matter if I think he's a deranged nutcase whose continued presidency would irrevocably damage the country: I would still be committing first-degree murder
I think the same argument applies to vote fraud. It doesn't matter how much you hate the president (or think him incompetent, or whatever), vote fraud is vote fraud.
> Some cosplayers did pretend to make electoral vote certificates to compete against, but cosplaying an electoral vote does not meet the legal requirements to create a valid electoral vote certificate.
So they are trying to prevent the cosplayers from successfully impersonating actual electors.
> I'm not going to respond to all of your points because my blood pressure can't take this, but I will close out with this comment: what happened yesterday is the electoral equivalent of lynching.
Thats hyperbolic and undemocratic.
> Even if you think it is justified, it is still an extralegal attempt by a mob to execute their will, damning the due process of anyone they come across.
Yeah I didn't support their actions but its kind of like the protests last summer: riots are the language of the unheard.
The cosplayers are the people who pretended to be the Republican electors in the states of Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, despite failing to meet the statutory requirements of meeting in the appointed place, having the vote signed by the respective Secretary of State, and having the vote receipt submitted to the National Archives.
In other words, these are people whose actions as purported electors are not legitimate. It is as if I were to put on a shirt with the word "POLICE" on it and print out a badge that had the same word of it--it doesn't actually make me a police officer, merely someone cosplaying a police officer. (Although as electors are not public officials, they are unlikely to run afoul of any laws, unless there is some fraud statute that is broad enough to cover this).
Their actions did not have the force of law. The seditionous mob who wanted to stop the electoral count are the people who want to install cosplayers as electors in flagrant violation of the law.
> Thats hyperbolic and undemocratic.
A lynching is a mob taking it upon themselves to murder someone in response to an alleged crime in an extralegal attempt to achieve justice, completely in violation of all due process. What happened yesterday was a mob taking it upon themselves to overturn the lawful results of the election in response to an alleged crime in an extralegal attempt to achieve justice, completely in violation of all due process. That is the antithesis of rule of law; it is not hyperbolic or undemocratic to draw that comparison.
We've already seen that failure to meet statutory requirements is not sufficient to disqualify an election, elector, or ballot. Otherwise PA would have gone to trump because of the backdated postmarks.
> In other words, these are people whose actions as purported electors are not legitimate.
According to you. Other people feel that these are the legitimate electors. Since legitimacy is a social construct and not a physical phenomenon, there is no objective answer.
> It is as if I were to put on a shirt with the word "POLICE" on it and print out a badge that had the same word of it--it doesn't actually make me a police officer, merely someone cosplaying a police officer.
Likewise, if the result of an election is altered due to ballot stuffing and other forms of compromise, the apparent victor is not legitimate, but a cosplayer.
> What happened yesterday was a mob taking it upon themselves to overturn the lawful results of the election in response to an alleged crime in an extralegal attempt to achieve justice, completely in violation of all due process.
Yes that's your opinion. If you refrain from assuming your own opinion about unknown facts to be automatically correct, then you can see how they may have felt themselves to be members of the public who were petitioning their government or performatively airing grievances just like their antifa/blm counterparts have been doing for years.
That is flat-out not true. Hearsay refers to whether or not the witness actually witnessed the event they are referring to, or is merely recounting what someone told them about the event. Some of the "sworn first-person statements" have the person literally swearing that they heard someone say something, which is literally hearsay. I haven't combed through every piece of evidence in every case, but a lot of "sworn first-person statements" basically amounted to hearsay or other statements that could not legally be sustained as evidence.
> Actually many of these cases never reached the stage of preventing evidence.
The first set of cases did reach that stage, and were often rejected because the evidence they did present was insufficient to sustain allegations.
> In a situation like this, demonstrating that the concerns are being taken seriously is more important than actually taking them seriously. The apparent legitimacy of the President is likely to have more of an effect on everything than who the president is, at this point. When these allegations aren't seen to be taken seriously it creates the appearance of illegitimacy, regardless of the facts.
Here's the problem. The people who are alleging this conspiracy--first and foremost Trump himself--are unwilling to sustain any evidence to the contrary. The Trump campaign and affiliates have lost 62 lawsuits in the past two months (and that's not counting subsequent losses on appeal). The legal theories in the most recent lawsuits start making pro se sovereign citizen bullshit look sane. Hell, Michigan has already filed a motion to impose sanctions on the lawyers for making these claims, which is a rare step.
And where did that get us? They're calling Mike Pence a traitor for not exercising unilateral authority to miscount the electoral votes--an authority that he does not have (read the 12th Amendment for yourself; it's not a long document). For the first time in 230 years, a mob has broken into Congress to commit sedition [1] to prevent the election of the next president. Not even in 1861, when the treasonous South objected to Lincoln's presidency, did this happen.
Why? It's not because we didn't demonstrate the concerns were being taken seriously. It's because way too many people were willing to indulge a delusional conspiracy theory that was ungrounded in truth, and to pretend that frivolous lawsuits that were clearly contrary to all prior precedent fanned [2] that delusion.
[1] 18 USC §2384: If two or more persons in any State or Territory [...] conspire to [...] by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, [...] they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
The mob that broke into the Capitol is unquestionably guilty of the crime of sedition.
[2] I have read several of the lawsuits and their briefs. I actually left a detailed comment about the Texas v Pennsylvania case when it was first filed, explaining 6 different reasons for SCOTUS to toss the case that didn't even address the merits at all.