By James V. DeLong
The complaint filed in Pennsylvania by the Trump campaign is a superb piece of legal craftsmanship.
It was filed in federal court, not state. The gist is that some of the state’s actions, and particularly the exclusion of Republican poll-watchers during the counting of hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, violated federal constitutional requirements.
The point is obvious enough once one thinks of it, but it’s brilliant all the same. It shifts the focus from state law, where a politicized Pennsylvania court has the last word, to federal law, where the U.S. Supreme Court rules.
As for the obviousness of the point, consider as a thought experiment a state law requiring that all votes be counted in secret by an unelected board named by the party in power. Could it survive a constitutional challenge?
As my old Harvard constitutional law professors would have said, “to ask the question is to answer it.” It is hard to count all the constitutional guarantees violated here: Equal Protection, Due Process, Privileges and Immunities. Indeed, the complaint stacks up the Supreme Court precedents supporting its arguments, including the long line of ringing statements in the chain of one-person-one-vote decisions.
Even the late Justice Ginsburg, who never met a progressive argument she could not support, would have trouble upholding such a law.
Given this framework, the historic decision in Bush v. Gore becomes useful but unimportant. The problem there was that the Florida Supreme Court pretended to be interpreting state law, and the legal convention is that the U.S. Supreme Court must defer on state issues, even though the Florida court was making up new law as it went along and changing its mind shamelessly.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore was muddled by the need to wiggle around this problem without addressing it head-on, because it would not do to cast doubt on the integrity of fellow judges. (The union is strong.) Only a three-justice concurrence said flatly that the Florida Court was contradicting the Legislature, and that would not do. Four justices went off on an opaque Equal Protection argument.
A result of this muddle, say friends in academia, is that progressive legal scholars are contemptuous of the decision and dismiss it as irrelevant.
Trump’s Pennsylvania case does not have the complication of the state versus federal law interaction because it jumps over the state law and, as noted, relies on a host of U.S. SCOTUS cases about the importance of voting.
The complaint has much more, designed to bolster its central point. Many other instances of fraudulent activity are cited, which lends credibility to the main accusation. They are also indispensable to establish a factual case — that the exclusion not only occurred, but mattered, because thousands of ballots were counted in secret.
Reading the news reports, it appears likely that similar complaints are going to be filed in other swing states and that perhaps we are seeing the exposure of a broad-based effort to corrupt the election. Joe Biden claimed that the Democrats were mounting the biggest voter fraud effort in history, and a good rule for living is that when someone tells you he is about to screw you over, believe him.
It is possible, then, that a number of cases will hit the Supreme Court in about three weeks.
Then there is this https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/examining_the_code_internet_geeks_conclude_trumps_win_was_yuuuge.html
Anyone who thinks this is brilliant should have their head examined.
Is this true?
Now lawyers will vet clients based on political views?
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/11/13/under-pressure-trump-lawyers-quit-in-pennsylvania/
If the Left has begun a winnowing of clients for their law firms based solely on political viewpoint, we are in real trouble.
Doctors could be next.
Who are the “Nazis” that discriminate based on prejudice?
@Marty Weinstein:
Such a compelling rebuttal, and indicative of the low-information voter that plagues our democracy.
@kitt: And that water main break in Georgia that stopped counting? Just a “slow leak”. No tickets for repairs to be found anywhere. So… why did they stop counting, at the same time counting was stopped (so they said) in Pennsylvania?
@Deplorable Me: It as all an honest mistake the water on the floor was from the Swampthing delivering really not late totally legit ballots.
@kitt: Or liberal tears due to an early Trump lead?
@Nan G:
That is because the scum at The Lincoln Project outed the names and phone numbers of attorneys working for the Trump campaign dealing with election results. Being doxxed by scum like George Conway shows you just what slugs man The Lincoln Project.
Maybe it’s time conservatives start giving them the same treatment.
@Marty Weinstein:
Indeed. Anyone trying to read the document has to hack their way through a couple of acres of rhetorical underbrush while searching for any accusations that are detailed and specific enough to actually be addressed by a court.
I was hoping specificity might set in under the heading of FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS beginning with item #23, but they just kept rattling on in the same vague fashion, expounding on how things should be, citing various statutes, and throwing in occasional anecdotal reports.
This is 243 enumerated paragraphs of quasi-legalistic rubbish, building up to a preposterous request at the end that the court prohibit every county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from certifying the results of their counts; if the court won’t do that, well, they can order that all absentee ballots and mail-in ballots that didn’t meet with the poll observers’ satisfaction be thrown out, along with all cast ballots that were lacking required information upon receipt that the voter subsequently provided when the problem was brought to their attention.
I’m not surprised the lawyers responsible would withdraw from the case the moment their identities and professional reputations became publicly associated with the filing. Labeling it as “a superb piece of legal craftsmanship” only makes it seem more ridiculous.
@Greg:
Thats not cool fascist boy, everyone in this country has the right to bring a case to court.
Threats on them, their families or law practices would be highly frowned upon by at least 72 million voting people. Bidens ambulance chasers brought this on.
Locking out poll watchers and counting in secret brought this on.
This mob like illegal bully behavior is going to end. You and your ilk cant do a thing about it.
@kitt, #10:
And they have done so in multiple states. No one has stopped them. That doesn’t change the fact that they haven’t produced credible evidence of anything that would change the outcome of the election.
That mentality is part of what a majority of American voters are ridding themselves of. It wasn’t a democrat who suggested that Christopher Wray and Dr Fauci’s heads should be on pikes on the corners of the White House lawn. Trump’s recent replacement of top Pentagon officials with Trump loyalists who have also made disturbing statements hasn’t gone unnoticed, either. Nor his refusal to allow Biden access to routine security briefings that any incoming president needs in order to be prepared to deal with problems the moment he assumes power.
Attentive voters didn’t think four more years of this was a reasonable option. It was Trump who wouldn’t say that he was committed to a peaceful transition when asked. He was the guy who was proclaiming election fraud months before the election had even begun, and said that whether or not he would accept the result “depends”.
Attentive Americans are thinking January 20th can’t get here soon enough.
@Greg:
Nope the fraud was way to flagrant and obvious.
I think Dominion is done as a voting system. Democrats are done as a party.
There is no connection between Dominion Voting Systems and democrats. Further, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies have jointly stated that there is absolutely no evidence that any voting system used in the recent election changed or deleted votes. The claims are pure, unadulterated conspiracy theory. The fact that Trump has pitched them on Twitter is one more reason the guy needs to be gone. He’s essentially attacking and undermining the integrity of one of the nation’s most important constitutional processes.
@retire05: Indeed, I wonder if Republicans might learn THIS time, if Biden is declared the winner and their “Truth Panels” begin setting them all up for violence, that playing nice with this scum is pointless?
@Greg: You never answered, so I’ll try here; do you support Democrats openly calling for voter fraud in Georgia? How do you expect people to believe there was no fraud in the election when your Democrats OPENLY ENCOURAGE IT in the Georgia run off?
Democrats had an army of attorneys staged in Florida to do this very thing if Biden lost by a small amount. So, SHOVE IT.
What kind of mentality does someone have to possess to pursue Russian collusion when it is PROVEN it was totally based on lies?
Republicans gained seats in the House, winning numerous down-ticket races they were expected to lose. Candidates that were characterized as doing Trump’s bidding won. You really expect us to accept that Trump was roundly rejected? Why do you fear investigation? Why did Democrat poll observers block Republicans from monitoring? What needed to remain hidden?
@Greg:
This has to be the dumbest thing you have ever said, and that’s going some.
Palsi Pelosi’s long time Chief of Staff sits on the Dominion Voting Systems board.
Dianne Feinstein’s husband owns a 60% interest in Dominion Voting Systems.
Seems your handlers are withholding information from you.
@Deplorable Me:
Why bother? The Commie bastid never answers questions. That’s not what he’s here for. He’s here to pimp his left wing lies in the hopes that someone, anyone, might believe him. And remember, while he is pimping the left wing’s lies, he’s still Joe Biden’s whore.
@Deplorable Me: What we have is Greg who will accept as rock hard evidence an anon source familiar with Trumps thinking. But not a named source literally putting their career on the line, both statistical and data analysis cause CNN says nah ah it aint so.
Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Trey Trainor, said reports of voter fraud in key battleground states are credible.
@kitt: Well, that always works with liberals. As long as they believe a liberal source is telling them something, they will believe ANYTHING. All facts and evidence to the contrary are “conspiracies”. Their liberal sources will tell them all that is “Russian disinformation” and that’s good enough, no questions asked. In essence, they live in mortal fear of the truth.
@retire05: Eventually, he is going to face the question.
@Deplorable Me, #14:
You’re asking if I support something that never happened. They never called for any such thing.
It was never proven to be without basis. “Total exoneration” is a total fabrication. Robert Mueller’s report clearly stated that the matter of collusion was not addressed because collusion is not a statutory offense. The investigation looked into the possibility of criminal conspiracy, which is a statutory offense. The conclusion was that insufficient evidence was found to support such a charge.
I don’t approve of what it has been established that central people in the Trump campaign organization secretly did. That includes obstruction. There’s no question in my mind that Trump misused his powers of office on multiple occasions to obstruct lawful investigations.
@retire05, #16:
The Pennsylvania lawsuit is a load of rubbish.
@Greg: Then you have nothing to fret about, the author simply likes the legal angle, you want the attorneys tarred and feathered or worse.
I dont think the Big Guy should back his septic trucks up to the swamp for wetlands restoration quite yet.
Nave you seen this on PBS? https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/will-georgias-new-voting-machines-solve-election-problems-or-make-them-worse
@Greg:
Yes it has happened. Democrats have stated it on television and social media, opening pushing for people to “move” to Georgia expressly to register to vote there and vote to skew the outcome of the run off. Now, if you want to try and make the argument that this is suggesting tens of thousands of families uproot and move, lock, stock and barrel, to Georgia for permanent residency simply because of this election, don’t bother. Don’t take us for being that stupid. You know what they are recommending. They put out an open and clear call for people to go to Georgia, claim to live there, register to vote, vote for Democrats, then go home. VOTER FRAUD.
But, this is characteristic of Democrats and there is no reason presented anywhere to doubt Democrats did not employ such fraud across the entire nation for the Presidential election. Lying, corrupt, cheating scumbags.
So, do you support it?
Yes it most definitely was, at least in regards to Trump. It was shown that DEMOCRATS colluded with Russians to affect the 2016 election with lies and disinformation, but in regards to Trump, the basis for the accusations was PROVEN to be totally based on lies. So, what kind of mentality continues to pursue that? You, obviously, are in a unique position to answer that question.
After searching, which included illegal surveillance and spying, for FOUR YEARS to find Trump doing something illegal failed to find evidence of illegal behavior. What is the ONLY conclusion to be drawn from that? (aside from the conclusion that Democrats were desperate to support their attempted coup)
Keep in mind, only ONE SIDE wants to identify those who disagree with liberal ideology, promote an inquisition, attack and punish those people. Just ONE. Only YOUR SIDE fears truth and facts.
@Deplorable Me, #22:
That’s NOT what Mueller’s report says. That’s what Trump said after Barr rolled out his bogus summary and then gave Trump a couple of weeks for his Total Exoneration Tour ahead of the report’s release. That was the point when I knew for certain that Barr was a political toady. Prior to that, it was only a strong suspicion.
Trump’s election fraud lawsuits are dropping like flies. So far they haven’t found a judge who will ignore the fact that there’s no real evidence supporting their allegations. The suits are actually nothing more than a means to reinforce a lie that his followers will believe without question.
The fact is that Biden won the popular election by more than 5.5 million votes, and that the geographical distribution of that enormous margin works out to 290 electoral college votes. Expecting the courts to ignore this and hand Trump the election on the basis of vague lawsuit allegations supported by no credible evidence is totally unrealistic. It’s not going to happen because it shouldn’t happen. If it did, it would render our constitutional election process meaningless.
@Greg: Expecting the courts to ignore this and hand Trump the election
Oz never gave the tin man nothin, nothing he didnt already have.
News max beat fox in ratings, it is glorious to see legacy lying media crash and burn. ATT cant even find anyone to buy CNN.
Thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Trump Supporters Marched in DC and in capitols across the Nation. Nothing burned.
Tweets by DanScavino
@kitt:
What is the matter with you? Do you not understand that our self proclaimed legal eagle, Comrade Greggie, is constantly telling you that Trump was not exonerated?
Now, he seems to want to dismiss the fact that Robert Mueller was basically made a prosecuting attorney to take his case to the grand jury (Congress) presenting all the evidence of guilt he could find. Except, Mueller could not find any evidence of Russian collusion to take to the grand jury so he inserted his claim of lack of exoneration. Any prosecuting attorney who told that to a judge or grand jury would be laughed out of court. I have asked Comrade Greggie to provide me one, just one example of any prosecuting attorney arguing a case claiming lack of exoneration. I got what we usually get from Comrade Greggie, crickets.
You have to really understand what cretins the Democrats have become. Remember the year 2000 where Democrats screamed to the roof tops to “count every ballot” and “give the process time?” Now, it seems, since Obama created the “Office of President Elect” out of thin air, Senile Joe has adopted the same false office and no one on the left, especially Comrade Greggie complains.
@Greg: The summary was the same as the results; no evidence of crimes. To say they couldn’t find enough to prosecute only means there wasn’t any evidence. And, as to collusion not being a crime, perhaps your crybaby, sore loser, moron ignoramuses that claimed collusion was committed and cost Hillary the election should have realized that before they plowed $35 million into a search for collusion. Not finding any, they pivoted to obstruction and anything else they thought they could look for. But, finding nothing, they tried to bury their utter failure with “there wasn’t enough to prosecute” and “we couldn’t exonerate”, which absolutely wasn’t their mission.
Anything else?
Biden hasn’t won anything. Due to the vast amounts of evidence of fraud, including the open invitation to commit fraud in Georgia, every close result will have to be investigated. In fact, every state should be examined to determine the full scope of Biden’s loss. Trump got a surprisingly large percentage in New York, where Democrats expected to win and didn’t bother with the scale of fraud committed in tight races.
@retire05:From NPR Mar 24, 2019 — The Mueller Report did not find any evidence of collusion.
Biden wants queen of unmasking Susan Rice into his admin. other swamp creatures he is dredging up from the slime.
We shall see if the courts can do a thing with the election cesspools MI and PA.
Reading Greg repeat transcripts of legacy media is almost amusing.
Secretary Boockvar: Pennsylvania Will Not Conduct Recount, saucy lil commie.