I am sure there are times when we wish we could just set our own rules. The heck with what the Constitution or the Rule of Law say. We might think we know better, so we’re going to make our own rule of law because we don’t think the existing Rule of Law cuts it any more.

Of course, we know that this is not the way things work in the United States. Or is it? Rule of Law is the political philosophy that all of our citizens and institutions are accountable to the same laws.

After the 2020 presidential election, Republicans in some battleground states, including Pennsylvania, decided to submit a list of fake electors in an attempt to overturn the will of the people and the victory of Democrat Joe Biden.

These state groups claimed that they represented the true slate of electors which should be recognized, not the duly elected ones.

Let’s look at the facts.

We had an election on Nov. 3, 2020. The results were clear. President-elect Joe Biden captured 306 electoral votes to President Donald Trump’s 232. In the process, Biden amassed more than 7 million votes than Trump.

While the popular vote is not a determination of who wins the presidency - we saw that in 2016 when Trump won the election with more electoral votes but fewer popular votes - the popular vote margin in 2020 was staggering by all historical markers.

Democratic and Republican election officials in virtually every state praised the conduct and fairness of the process and controls of the 2020 election. Independent foreign observers agreed.

The U.S. Attorney General, a Trump appointee, agreed. Election officials of both parties in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada all concluded that Biden won their states in fair elections. In Georgia, the results were retabulated three times. Even a bungled audit in Arizona did not suggest a change the outcome.

Trump backers went to court in a number of states, including Pennsylvania, to challenge the election findings, but with one minor exception involving 200 votes, none of the challenges, some before Trump-appointed judges and some before the U.S. Supreme Court with three recent Trump appointees, were deemed to have merit.

Finally, on Dec. 14, 2020, 538 electors of the Electoral College gathered in their respective states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots reflecting the will of their voters and verifying officially the results.

Then on Jan. 6, 2021, two weeks before Biden was scheduled to take the oath of office to become the 46th president of the United States, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington in what has been termed an insurrection.

Despite this brazen attempt to disregard the bona fide results of the election, members of Congress, who had only hours earlier feared for their lives and took shelter in a secret location within the Capitol, reconvened and confirmed the results of the election, despite the opposition of eight Republican senators and 139 U.S. Representatives, including Dan Meuser, whose district includes Carbon and Schuylkill counties. Three other Pennsylvanians voted in opposition to certifying Biden as the winner of the state’s vote - John Joyce (whose district consists of counties in the south-central part of the state), Fred Keller (north-central part of the state, including State College) and Mike Kelly (northwestern part of the state).

The Democratic-led House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced in February that it had subpoenaed 14 people tied to an attempt to have bogus electors recognized in an effort to keep Trump in office.

These are not rogue hoodlums but in many cases mainstream Republicans who, essentially, thumbed their noses at the Constitution and the Rule of Law. One of the 14 subpoenaed is a local businessman - Bill Bachenbach, owner of Lehigh County Sporting Clays in Coplay, Lehigh County. He is listed as chairman of the Pennsylvania alternate electors. The other Pennsylvanian subpoenaed is Lisa Patton, listed as secretary of the alternate group and state events director during Trump’s unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2020.

About a month after the election, Pennsylvania Republicans, along with those in six other key states won by Biden, met and signed documents falsely asserting that Trump was or may be the winner of their state’s Electoral College votes. The documents with the names of the bogus electors were then sent to federal officials.

What has not been widely disclosed is that there are 18 other Pennsylvania “fake” electors whose names were submitted to try to throw a monkey wrench into the electoral ballot counting. Two of them - former Hazleton mayor and ex-U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta and GOP political strategist Charlie Gerow - are running for governor this year to replace Democrat Tom Wolf who will complete his second term and cannot run again due to term limits.

Several other local and area Republican VIPs were part of the bogus electors group, including Tom Carroll, an unsuccessful candidate for Northampton County District Attorney in 2019; Josephine Ferro, the current Register of Wills in Monroe County and former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women, and Patricia Poprik, chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee.

This failed attempt to subvert the election should have consequences and, indeed, it might, because the U.S. Department of Justice is expected to review the case to determine whether criminal actions were committed. Quite frankly, this ploy to steal the election should not be dismissed merely as a dirty trick by Trump supporters gone terribly wrong. This was a direct assault on our country’s Rule of Law.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.