Uh, that was pretty obvious. Have you never watched a count before?

How could anyone prepare for covering this one without having seen an electoral vote count before? https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1347089605691125760

It’s not that it’s so shocking that people (though maybe not reporters) have no idea how things work and have done no research. It’s that having finally caught up, this is presented as having involved some sort of unfair rules change or maneuvering.

Unfortunately , that seems particularly dangerous just now. It feeds exactly the sort of resentment that led to yesterday’s assault on the Capitol, when all it is is an acknowledgement that Republicans inside the chamber planned to attempt to introduce counterfeit documents.

How could the story NOT be that Republicans created, attempted to plant, and then planned to introduce COUNTERFEIT electoral vote certificates? How does that get left out? Or did you already know that before 3 am, so it wasn’t a “breaking scoop?”

Read the replies! The people sharing it are now certain Pence “cheated,” when what he did was clarify the language in an attempt to preclude their cheating. There ARE no legitimate “rival” documents. There are COUNTERFEITS, and this “scoop” accidentally legitimizes them!

Maybe the worst thing about his thread is that he hits Pence for precision of language, then publishes a report on it so imprecise in describing the background that he ends up refueling the resentments that led to yesterday’s attack!

Forgive me, but there aren’t a lot of parliamentary emergency stories. You have to jump on them when they happen!

But also, not a lot of stories where the parliamentarian is the hero. When there is one, and it gets written casting the parliamentarian as the villain orchestrating a secret cabal, that requires correction.

And if there’s an insurrection going on at the time, well… gee whiz!