Election Litigation Status

[Res Ipsa]

Major litigation update:

After being hit with a strong motion to dismiss and having a major law firm withdraw, Trump’s legal team has abandoned its claims in the kitchen sink lawsuit in PA that were based on access to the locations where votes were counted. The lawsuit no longer asks the court to block certification of the results. All that is left is a claim based on a small number of cured ballots. There aren’t enough of those to change the result.

I believe the abandoned claims were the only ones in front of a trial court that involved enough votes to flip the result in PA.

Election contests can be filed after certification, so this isn’t the end. But abandoning the only claim that could change the result doesn’t signal confidence to me.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

ETA: Washington Post also published a pretty comprehensive litigation recap a day or two ago. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

[Chap]

Washington Post asks me to subscribe, which I prefer not to do (for various reasons).

Would you consider simply pasting the main text of the stories to which you refer? I do it quite a lot myself, and it takes little time.

[subgenius]

So, given the litigation - will its results have any impact on the fact that:
1. Dems lost seats in the US House (right now Pelosi can only afford to lose 7 votes, after the counting is actually over it seems likely that margin will 3)
2. Dems failed to flip even 1 State Legislature
3. Dems do not control US Senate

Dems are already concerned that a Biden admin will take numbers from Congress leaving them vulnerable.
Pelosi's tenure also seems to be over.

[Res Ipsa]

So, given the litigation - will its results have any impact on the fact that:
1. Dems lost seats in the US House (right now Pelosi can only afford to lose 7 votes, after the counting is actually over it seems likely that margin will 3)
2. Dems failed to flip even 1 State Legislature
3. Dems do not control US Senate

Dems are already concerned that a Biden admin will take numbers from Congress leaving them vulnerable.
Pelosi's tenure also seems to be over.

Not sure why you think this is relevant to the topic, but note that the Dems aren't filing a metric buttload of lawsuits screaming "fraud."

[Res Ipsa]

Washington Post asks me to subscribe, which I prefer not to do (for various reasons).

Would you consider simply pasting the main text of the stories to which you refer? I do it quite a lot myself, and it takes little time.

Copying and pasting entire articles is probably not "fair use" under U.S. Copyright law. I'll try to remember to post sources that aren't behind paywalls.

[Icarus]

Washington Post asks me to subscribe, which I prefer not to do (for various reasons).

Would you consider simply pasting the main text of the stories to which you refer? I do it quite a lot myself, and it takes little time.

Clear your cookies and then refresh your browser. Works every time.

[Chap]

A French friend sent me this:



To which I could only respond:

"Yup, but after Napoleon's decisive victory, the British and their allies stole it from him by using mail-in bullets, many of them illegal."

By the way, Napoleon really did spend the rest of his life claiming that his opponent was a really lousy general, that he himself fought the battle with superior tactical skill, etc. etc.

I don't think he used fake tan, though.

[Res Ipsa]

Nice touch, Chap.

GOP plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed four cases today: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All four had tried to stop states from certifying their counts.

ETA: Buzzfeed published a very nice recap of the little flurry of PA court decisions at the end of last week. The federal Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circult published a lengthy opinion that narrowly dealt with an application of for an injunction, but broadly addressed why the individual plaintiffs didn't have standing to bring their federal claims. Unless appealed to the Supreme Court, that opinion is controlling law for the federal District Courts in PA. There's a link to the 55-page opinion in the article, and it's a pretty good primer on standing. That sounds boring, but to explain the rulings on standing, the court explains in detail the federal constitutional claims being made. It's discussion of vote dilution is pretty educational.

That opinion is what led to voluntary dismissal of one of the other cases filed in federal court in PA by individual voters. It is what also led to substantial revisions to the Trump campaign's federal lawsuit in PA. That's the one I've referred to as the "kitchen sink" lawsuit. Argument in that case is being heard today.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zo ... nnsylvania

[Chap]

35m ago

Pennsylvania supreme court deals Trump campaign another defeat

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the Trump campaign’s legal efforts in Pennsylvania:

Philadelphia election officials did not improperly block Donald Trump’s campaign from observing the counting of mail-in ballots, the Pennsylvania supreme court ruled 5-2 on Tuesday, a major blow to the president’s already flailing legal efforts.

The decision is significant because one of the Trump campaign’s loudest claims since the election has been that they were improperly blocked from observing the counting of ballots in Philadelphia.

While campaign observers were always allowed to observe, the campaign alleged they were being kept too far from the counting - about 15-18 feet - to make any meaningful observation. It secured a court order in the days after election day requiring Philadelphia officials to let observers within 6 feet.

But the Pennsylvania supreme court reversed that decision on Tuesday, noting that Pennsylvania law gives Philadelphia election officials wide discretion to decide the rules around observers.

“The Board did not act contrary to law in fashioning its regulations governing the positioning of candidate representatives during the pre-canvassing and canvassing process, as the Election Code does not specify minimum distance parameters for the location of such representatives,” Justice Barbara Todd, a Democrat, wrote for the five justice majority.

“We find the Board’s regulations as applied herein were reasonable in that they allowed candidate representatives to observe the Board conducting its activities as prescribed under the Election Code.”

Even the two Republican justices who dissented from the majority opinion disagreed with the idea, advanced by the Trump campaign, that legitimate votes should be rejected because of improper observation practices.

“Short of demonstrated fraud, the notion that presumptively valid ballots cast by the Pennsylvania electorate would be disregarded based on isolated procedural irregularities that have been redressed -- thus disenfranchising potentially thousands of voters -- is misguided,” Chief Justice Thomas Saylor wrote in his dissenting opinion.

“Accordingly, to the degree that there is a concern with protecting or legitimizing the will of the Philadelphians who cast their votes while candidate representatives were unnecessarily restrained at the Convention Center, I fail to see that there is any real issue.”

As a reminder, Joe Biden currently leads Trump in Pennsylvania by 72,832 votes.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]