ascertainment

Ultrafast laser spectroscopy allows the ascertainment of dynamics over extremely short time scales, making it a very useful tool in many scientific and industrial applications.

The federal indictment also states that Trump worked directly with Giuliani in pressuring Arizona state officials to overturn the popular vote, including calling the Republican Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives Rusty Bowers, in which they “made knowingly false claims of election fraud aimed at interfering with the ascertainment of and voting by Arizona’s electors.”

Among the quotes ascribed to Co-Conspirator 1 is this infamous one—spoken to the Arizona House Speaker, Rusty Bowers, in an effort to persuade him to use the legislature to circumvent the normal ascertainment of electors in the state: “We don’t have the evidence, but we have lots of theories.”

“That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the defendant,” the indictment said.

They record the vote on an official certificate, called the Certificate of Ascertainment, which they send to Washington, D.C.