Updated: This post has been updated to clarify the procedural reasons the Republican electors cast their ballots for President Trump.
Various fact-checks on the dueling electors state, “Joe Biden got all of the electoral college votes in those three states, a result of the Biden-Harris ticket winning the majority of the certified votes there. Electors gathered at state capitols around the United States Monday, December 14, 2020, to cast their votes. There were no “faithless electors” in the process, which means each elector voted along the lines of their state’s popular vote.”
Trump electors voted as procedural votes to preserve their vote while states are being contested. Republican Electors in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona cast procedural votes for President and Vice President to preserve the Trump campaign’s legal challenges.
The Trump campaign asked Trump electors to cast their votes as litigation makes its way through the system as we saw in the 1960 election with Nixon vs Kennedy. You can read more here.
Arizona’s eleven Republican Presidential Electors have convened to cast their votes for President Donald to be reelected.
In doing so, Arizona became the fourth swing state casting procedural ballots for Trump while the states continue to be contested.
The Signing. pic.twitter.com/6gPsfqrk7T
— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) December 14, 2020
The Arizona GOP said in a statement that “as the legal proceedings arising from the November 3 presidential election continue to work their way through our nation’s judicial system, the Arizona Republicans who pledged to choose President Trump and Vice President Pence in the Electoral College convened on December 14 to cast their votes and send them to Congress where they are to be opened and counted beginning on January 6.”
“Of course, there is precedent for our Republican electors meeting on December 14, even as the Democrat electors for Arizona also meet elsewhere,” the statement continued. “Democrat electors pledged to John F. Kennedy convened in Hawaii in 1960, at the same time as Republican electors met, even though the Governor had certified Richard Nixon as the winner. In the end, Hawaii’s electoral votes were awarded to President Kennedy, even though he did not win the state until 11 days after the electors cast their votes.”
The state party added that “the legitimacy and good sense of two sets of electors meeting on December 14 to cast competing votes for President and Vice President, with the conflict to be later sorted out by the courts and Congress, was pointed out by prominent Democrat lawyers Van Jones and Larry Lessing in an essay published last month on CNN.”
Today, Arizona’s 11 Republican Presidential Electors convened to cast their votes for President @realDonaldTrump and Vice President @mike_pence.
Read our full statement below ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/Cn20PcW3D7
— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) December 14, 2020
“Given that the results in Arizona remain in doubt, with legal arguments still to be decided, just as the Democrat electors met in Hawaii in 1960 while awaiting a final resolution to the state’s vote, so too the Republican electors have agreed to meet this year on December 14 as we await a final resolution of Arizona’s 11 electoral votes.”
Republican Party of Arizona Chairwoman Kelli Ward added that “it is imperative that the proper electors are counted by Congress.”
The Electoral Count Act (ECA) of 1887 says each chamber of Congress will separately decide which slate of ‘dueling electors’ to accept.
