POL November 3: The 2020 U.S. ELECTION DAY MAIN THREAD
- Thread starter The Hammer
- Start date
blackjeep
The end times are here.
THEY DON'T!!??? I've probably read some incorrect stuff by now, wut do I do, call 911??
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Michigan Board of Elections Orders County Clerks to Delete Vote Data
The Michigan Board of Elections ordered county clerks to delete election-related data from government computers.
www.breitbart.com
Michigan Board of Elections Orders County Clerks to Delete Vote Data
699
KYLE OLSON5 Dec 20201,027
Michigan Republican legislative leaders were not happy on Friday when they learned the Board of Elections (BOE) ordered county clerks to delete election-related data from government computers.
On December 1, the BOE, which is under the auspices of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), sent a memo to all clerks about recounts and the “release of voting equipment.”
One section, titled, “E-Pollbook laptops and flash drives,” read:
That raised the ire of state Rep. Matt Hall (R) and state Sen. Ed McBroom (R), chairmen of their respective oversight committees, who indicated the memo violated an order by House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) for election data to be preserved.
Chatfield and Shirkey issued a directive on November 6 “which served as notice of the Michigan Legislature’s plans to conduct an inquiry into the general election,” a release from Hall said.
“Because of that inquiry, Detroit city clerk and BOE offices were directed to preserve certain materials, including relevant electronic information. The inquiry also demands all surveillance video recordings that were taken at the TCF Center in Detroit from Nov. 3-5 be kept,” it continued.
“Our work is about restoring confidence in our elections process. We are making sure that we have access to relevant and needed information as the Legislature performs its inquiry into what happened and that the information hasn’t been deleted in the face of that inquiry and litigation that is still out there,” Hall said.
“It is concerning this memo went out after a letter was delivered asking these entities to preserve evidence. As a result, we want an assurance that this information is being preserved.”
Hall and McBroom said they are requesting “immediate clarity” to ensure the election data is being preserved in accordance with the directive from Chatfield and Shirkey.
Both oversight committees held lengthy hearings this week and took testimony from election workers and observers who claimed laws, rules, and procedures were violated during the counting process at the TCF Center in Detroit.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
31:30 min
Leftists And Democrats Start PANICKING As They Realize Trump Is Actually WINNING Political Victories
•Dec 5, 2020
Tim Pool
Leftists And Democrats Start PANICKING As They Realize Trump Is Actually WINNING Political Victories. In several state legislatures Republicans are calling the election in dispute and Trump might actually be able to pull off a major victory. First Democrats ignored Trump and republicans after the election. All the complaints and issuers brought up were nothing to them. Then they laughed, they laughed at Sidney powell and Rudy Giuliani. Now they are starting to fight after realizing that Trump is actually winning political victories in key swing states. He may be losing legal challenges but he is gaining legitimacy in the question over widespread irregularity We all know the next step in the saying Then Trump wins
marsh
On TB every waking moment
LIVE
LIVE: President Donald Trump Rally LIVE in Valdosta, GA
•Started streaming 3 hours ago
Right Side Broadcasting Network
Saturday, December 5, 2020: Join the RSBN crew for live coverage from Valdosta, GA as President Donald Trump holds a Victory rally featuring Senator David Perdue, Senator Kelly Loeffler, and Other Republicans. Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. announced that the Republican National Committee will host a Victory Rally in Valdosta, Georgia on Saturday, December 5th, 2020 at 7:00 PM EST. This rally will feature remarks from President Donald J. Trump, Senator David Perdue, Senator Kelly Loeffler, candidate for Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, and other Republicans. Saturday, December 5, 2020 at 7:00 PM EST
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Georgia Gov. Kemp Reportedly Shot Down a Request From Trump to Appoint Electors for Him Instead of Biden, Sparking Twitter Battle
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp shot down a request from President Donald Trump to call a special legislative session to appoint electors for him instead of Joe Biden on Saturday, according to reports. The phone call came just hours ahead of President Trump’s rally in the state, according to reports...
www.thegatewaypundit.com
Georgia Gov. Kemp Reportedly Shot Down a Request From Trump to Appoint Electors for Him Instead of Biden, Sparking Twitter Battle
By Cassandra Fairbanks
Published December 5, 2020 at 3:56pm
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp shot down a request from President Donald Trump to call a special legislative session to appoint electors for him instead of Joe Biden on Saturday, according to reports.
The phone call came just hours ahead of President Trump’s rally in the state, according to reports from the Associated Press and Washington Post.
The reports say that President Trump also requested that the Republican governor demand an audit of absentee ballot signatures — but that Kemp shot that down too.
“I will easily & quickly win Georgia if Governor @BrianKempGA or the Secretary of State permit a simple signature verification. Has not been done and will show large scale discrepancies. Why are these two ‘Republicans’ saying no? If we win Georgia, everything else falls in place!” Trump tweeted Saturday.
Kemp responded by quote tweeting Trump and saying that “as I told the President this morning, I’ve publicly called for a signature audit three times (11/20, 11/24, 12/3) to restore confidence in our election process and to ensure that only legal votes are counted in Georgia.”
Trump responded to Kemp on Twitter, publicly asking why he will not call a special session.
“But you never got the signature verification! Your people are refusing to do what you ask. What are they hiding? At least immediately ask for a Special Session of the Legislature. That you can easily, and immediately, do. #Transparency,” Trump replied.
Many are worried about the runoff election in Georgia and pressuring people to vote, despite the fact that the GOP candidates and governor have not been very supportive of Trump’s effort.
Others have argued that the GOP should earn the people’s votes, by fighting for the president.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Analyst finds thousands of illegal Georgia ballots – files suit
Visit the post for more.
danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com
Analyst finds thousands of illegal Georgia ballots – files suit
3:22 min
OAN
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Rep. Mo Brooks' challenge to Electoral College certification: the roadmap
"It happened in 2001, it happened in 2005, it happened in 2017, almost all the time it doesn't go anywhere — and we probably won't this time, just based on mathematics," said Tom Spencer, vice president, Lawyers Democracy Fund.
justthenews.com
Rep. Mo Brooks' challenge to Electoral College certification: the roadmap
"It happened in 2001, it happened in 2005, it happened in 2017, almost all the time it doesn't go anywhere — and we probably won't this time, just based on mathematics," said Tom Spencer, vice president, Lawyers Democracy Fund.
Donald Trump, Nov. 20
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty)
By Carrie Sheffield
Updated: December 4, 2020 - 11:24pm
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) faces an uphill battle if he challenges the Electoral College and backs President Trump on Jan. 6, when Congress is scheduled to certify Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential race.
Brooks said this week he has been sharing his plan with fellow House members in hopes of invoking the 12th Amendment and helping Trump win. At least one senator must partner with Brooks to trigger a vote on an electoral challenge, and Brooks told Fox News Radio on Thursday, "We have some leads for United States Senators who may do it."
Under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, in a contingent election no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, and the election is thrown to the U.S. House of Representatives. There, each state's delegation has one vote, and a candidate must receive the votes of a majority of state delegations to win. Because of the calendar, the new Congress is the one that decides, not the outgoing one.
In the new Congress, there are more states with Republican delegations than Democratic ones, so in that scenario, Trump would win.
"Thank you to Representative Mo Brooks," Trump tweeted Thursday morning after news of Brooks' intention broke.
"Ask your senators and congressman if they will object to any Electoral College certification of Joe Biden on January 6," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch tweeted Nov. 23.
It's unlikely, however, that Brooks would be able to successfully invoke the 12th Amendment if he can't get a majority of both the House and the Senate to support his efforts. Brooks said he doesn't think he needs a majority. Legal experts disagree, arguing that while a single member of the House and Senate can raise an objection, majorities in both the House and the Senate would have to approve it for any electoral votes to be tossed out. This would not happen under a Democratic-controlled House.
"They are misunderstanding the law," says election law expert Hans von Spakovsky.
The procedures for the counting of Electoral College votes in Congress are set forth in 3 U.S.C. 15, according to von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and manager of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative.
"What it says is that an objection can be filed to the certification of votes from the states when they are being counted in the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, if it is signed by one member of the House and one member of the Senate," he told Just the News. "However, the Senate and the House then each have to stage a vote on the objection, which obviously will not go forward unless a majority of senators and a majority of representatives approve of the objection."
America's founding documents state that it is Congress that must officially certify the presidential winner. Various media outlets are projecting 306 electors for Biden and 232 for Trump, though these electoral votes are not formally cast until Dec. 14. Under an 1887 law called the Electoral Count Act, the House and Senate must meet in joint session on Jan. 6, at 1 p.m. and vote on the certification of the electors.
Federal statute outlines that if at least one House member and one senator both object to the electors, they are able to stop the process temporarily through a written statement. If that happens, the House and Senate must each debate the outcome for no more than two hours before taking a vote.
"It happened in 2001, it happened in 2005, it happened in 2017, almost all the time it doesn't go anywhere," said Tom Spencer, vice president of the Lawyers Democracy Fund and an attorney representing the George W. Bush 2000 campaign. "And we probably won't this time, just based on mathematics. But, I got to hand it to him and, you know, good for him. He's doing the right thing. And Democrats who did it before in 2001, 2005, 2017, etc. — you know, [it's] their right to do it. We've got a Constitution, we've got to follow it."
American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein said Wednesday that at least one House member and one Senator could likely challenge electors, but he does not believe it will sway the outcome.
"What happens is the House and Senate meet together, and if there's a challenge, they go back to their respective chambers and resolve the issue," Ornstein explained at a Zoom meeting for the National Task Force on Election Crises. "That can happen pretty quickly. I would think it would not have significant debate, although it could have some debate before you get votes."
marsh
On TB every waking moment
QUESTIONABLE: Ruby Freeman, Georgia's Suitcase Vote Counter, Solicited 'Donations' After Working During Election
The woman exposed as part of the unsupervised overnight Georgia vote count solicited donations on Facebook after finishing her work.
nationalfile.com
QUESTIONABLE: Ruby Freeman, Georgia’s Suitcase Vote Counter, Solicited ‘Donations’ After Working During Election
The woman exposed as part of the unsupervised overnight Georgia vote count solicited donations on Facebook after finishing her work.
December 5, 2020
Georgia vote counter Ruby Freeman, who was identified as the mother of the woman who brought in suitcases full of ballots after observers were instructed to leave in a video posted by the Trump Campaign, solicited donations in a Facebook post on November 8, while she likely was still serving as an election worker.
In the Facebook post, Freeman notes that she had worked for 16 hours on Friday, November 6 and that she had not taken a weekend off in three weeks. She also tagged Diamond Nails in her post, indicating where she desired to spend her donated funds.
“I worked 16 hours on Friday,” wrote Freeman. “First weekend off in 3 weeks. Donations accepted,” she added.
Freeman solicited these donations on November 8, 2020, and would have been referencing Friday, November 6. At this point, Georgia ballots were still being counted throughout the state, especially in Fulton County, where an alleged water pipe malfunction slowed the process by several hours. The malfunction was later confirmed to be isolated to a single toilet.
National File obtained this image from Freeman’s now-deleted Facebook profile. This latest update comes as questions are raised surrounding Freeman and her daughters’ actions while serving as election workers, as National File reported:
Freeman’s daughter is then seen to be the first person who actually removes the votes from the suitcases.
In this image, Freeman’s daughter appears to be issuing instructions to the other vote counters. They begin moving to the suitcases and ballots after she stands in this position and speaks.
Since National File revealed that the person in a supervisory role was Freeman’s daughter, we have since revealed her daughter’s name to be Shaye Moss. Moss was profiled in 2019 for her achievement of processing 10,000 absentee voting applications by herself.
jward
passin' thru
Did we know this. Do we need to know this?
President Elect Chump Joe Kennedy
@Freedom4USNow
2m
Electoral College Deadlines Not ‘Set In Stone’: Election Integrity Watchdog
View: https://twitter.com/Freedom4USNow/status/1335374112831791105?s=20
President Elect Chump Joe Kennedy
@Freedom4USNow
2m
Electoral College Deadlines Not ‘Set In Stone’: Election Integrity Watchdog
View: https://twitter.com/Freedom4USNow/status/1335374112831791105?s=20
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Georgia Secretary of State Partially Bends The Knee, Acknowledges ‘Ballots Were Counted Unlawfully And In Secret’
After Thursday's bombshell security footage that showed vote counting observers being sent home, only for vote counters to pull black
nationalfile.com
The Georgia Secretary of State's office now acknowledges that Republicans were not present while votes were counted in Georgia.
by TOM PAPPERT
December 4, 2020
After Thursday’s bombshell security footage that showed vote counting observers being sent home, only for vote counters to pull black suitcases full of votes from underneath a table and begin processing them in the early hours in the morning, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office conceded that “ballots were counted unlawfully and in secret.”
David Shafer, Chair of the Georgia Republican Party, posted the security camera video from Thursday’s hearing on his Twitter account and wrote, “Not sure why Twitter has labeled this ‘disputed’. It is video from the surveillance camera at State Farm Arena where Fulton County election workers scanned ballots late into the night after falsely announcing they were shutting down.”
After an NPR and GBP News journalist, Stephen Fowler, falsely reported that the Georgia Secretary of State and Georgia Republican Party engaged in “slight goalpost-moving comments,” Shafer corrected that the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, led by the thus-far unhelpful Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have amended their stance, and it has always been the Georgia Republican Party’s stance that ballots were counted illegally.
“More false reporting from Stephen Fowler of @GPBNews,” wrote Shafer. “Although originally reporting that state monitors were present,” the Georgia Secretary of State “now acknowledges that this was untrue, as video shows.”
“Our position is unchanged,” he said of the Georgia Republican Party. “Ballots were counted unlawfully and in secret.”
Schafer added, “Even had state monitors been present, the law still requires that ballot counting be open to partisan monitors and the public. But state monitors were not, present,” which the Georgia Secretary of State “now acknowledges and the video shows.”
Thus far, both Republican U.S. Senate candidates, Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, have called for Raffensperger to resign from his position as Secretary of State immediately. However, Loeffler and Purdue have stopped short of calling for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, to call a special session of the legislature so state legislators can address issues of election irregularity and determine whether the state’s 13 Electoral College votes should be assigned to President Donald Trump or to Joe Biden.
Raffensperger has also failed failed to call for signature verification of mail-in ballots during Georgia’s second recount, in a move many Republicans, including President Trump, say has so far made the recount a meaningless exercise.
While Shafer says the Secretary of State’s office is now in agreement on the issue of votes being counted illegally, National File was unable to locate a public comment made by Raffensperger to this effect.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani says courts not needed to challenge election; states should decide
Rudolph W. Giuliani bushed off legal blows suffered by other lawyers for President Trump in light of their efforts to challenge the results of his race for reelection in court falling short Friday.
www.washingtontimes.com
Trump lawyer Giuliani: 'The simple fact is, we don't need courts'; state legislatures can decide
In this Nov. 19, 2020, file photo, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
By Andrew Blake - The Washington Times - Saturday, December 5, 2020
Rudolph W. Giuliani brushed off legal blows suffered by other lawyers for President Trump in light of their efforts to challenge the results of his race for reelection in court falling short Friday.
“The simple fact is, we don’t need courts,” Mr. Giuliani stated on Fox News. “The United States Constitution gives sole power to the state legislature to decide presidential elections,” he said.
Lawyers representing Mr. Trump and his reelection team are pursuing lawsuits in a number of states where they allege his loss at the polls to Democratic rival Joseph R. Biden was the result of fraud.
While litigation has failed to produce any credible evidence to corroborate allegations of substantial fraud, Mr. Giuliani has in the meantime pushed unproven claims of corruption outside of court.
Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier during the interview, Mr. Giuliani explained his recent strategy of having elected Republicans in state office hold meetings to hear about his claims.
“The reason I went to the state legislatures, Sean, is because I saw what the courts were doing, and I wanted to go around them so the facts could get out,” said Mr. Giuliani.
“A Georgia court wouldn’t have allowed us to put those witnesses on. The legislature did it. In Michigan, the same thing. We had two Democrat judges and they weren’t allowing us to put witnesses on,” Mr. Giuliani added. “But I was able to get some of the witnesses you use there because I went to the legislature.”
Mr. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor, argued that nation’s framers would prefer to see the presidential race finally determined by the legislatures of the country’s states.
“In fact, if we go back to the Founding Fathers, they would tell us we’re making a mistake. This should be thrown right to the House of Representatives and the Senate in each state, and they should hold hearings, they should make factual determinations and they should decide what the right voter count is,” declared Mr. Giuliani.
Polling done in the months before Election Day projected Mr. Biden would beat Mr. Trump, but the president dismissed those predictions, then later the results of the race, and has not yet conceded.
Mr. Biden received around 51.4% of popular votes cast in the presidential election, while Mr. Trump received around 46.9%, according to the Associated Press. Mr. Biden also won the Electoral Vote.
Bubble Head
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Ruby Freebush is claiming the suitcase dragged out from under the table was simply her lunch box. Please send money now. She needs to eat her next meal in an non extradition country.
TerriHaute
Hoosier Gardener
Shipwreckedcrew is a former DOJ lawyer that writes and tweets under this name to remain anonymous. I have been following him on Twitter for months and his analysis is always interesting.
Is There Another Scenario That Makes Justice Alito's Dec. 9 Response Date Meaningful in Different Way?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 05, 2020 2:15 PM ET
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
I’ve spent some time reading comments to this story I wrote yesterday as well as many other legal analysts’ views on what — if anything — can be divined from the fact that Justice Samuel Alito ordered the State of Pennsylvania and other defendants to respond by December 9 to the action filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly seeking to declare unlawful the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme used in the November election.
In my story yesterday I noted that the due date for the opposition papers is one day after the last day on which the Pennsylvania electors could be named based on the election results as certified by the Secretary of the Commonwealth and that there is currently no court order which prevents that from happening. As some have noted, the end of the “safe harbor” period — December 8 — is simply a date established by Congress by which a state benefits if all election disputes are settled and the outcome is certified by the state at least six days prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. The states are not required to meet this deadline, it only provides that certain challenges to a state’s naming of electors will not be entertained if the state does meet the deadline.
What many have correctly noted is that this “safe harbor” provision has no legal effect on what the Supreme Court can do if it were to find merit in any election challenge it chooses to hear. Until the Electoral College actually meets and votes, the Court possesses the authority to issue an injunction preventing the electors from any particular state from being able to lawfully participate on the basis that the manner of their selection was legally invalid.
The Court itself gave this “safe harbor” provision notoriety in Bush v. Gore when it used the statute as a basis to not send the matter back to the Supreme Court of Florida so that Court could address the flaws in the statewide “recount” that it had ordered to take place. The lack of consistent statewide standards for executing that recount was the basis upon which the US Supreme Court halted the Florida Court-ordered recount.
The US Supreme Court blocked the recount from resuming with reformulated standards because the Court issued its decision on the last day of the “Safe Harbor” period, and the Court found that the Florida Legislature had expressed an intention to take advantage of that provision in the Florida election statute. As such, there was no time for the Florida Supreme Court to remedy its errors — even though the Electoral College meeting was still a week away. Many legal commentators at the time decried that justification as simply an excuse put forward by the US Supreme Court to stop any further recount from taking place in Florida that might again switch the outcome of the race.
Given the actual purpose of the Dec. 8 “safe harbor” deadline, the fact that Justice Alito has set the date for the opposition papers to be filed as of December 9 is “noteworthy” but not necessarily impactful on what the Court can still do.
Most of the legal pundits on the left have been dismissive of the claims made in the lawsuit brought by Kelly and predicted that the matter would be summarily dismissed. They all conflate the extreme nature of the remedy sought with the underlying merits of the case as their reason for rejecting the merits. I have yet to find a meaningful argument advanced in opposition to Kelly’s claims on the merits — the opposition seems only to focus on the prospect of “disenfranchising” millions of voters who cast votes in a manner that they understood to be lawful based on what they were told by the state and county officials.
Other than remaining “hopeful” in a metaphysical sense, is there anything that might be read into the fact that Justice Alito seems to have given the state defendants an inordinately long amount of time to respond to an Emergency Application for an injunction under the circumstances?
Maybe it’s to give the Court more time.
Maybe it’s to lay the groundwork for use of a “MOAB” (“Mother of all Bombs”) remedy with respect to Pennsylvania. While it might be “shocking” to the political system in 2020, it might also be the “electro-shock paddles to the chest” that the political branches need to shake themselves out of their current descent into open warfare with respect to the ground rules for conducting elections.
This supposition begins with the premise that inside SCOTUS there is a view that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made itself into little more than an extension of the partisan political machine run by the Pennsylvania Democrat Party in the large metropolitan areas of the state. Its only judicial philosophy seems to be to promote the positions advanced by Democrats and defeat the positions advanced by Republicans. In 2020 this partisanship crossed over into the realm of how elections are conducted and threatens to eliminate the possibility of fair electoral outcomes in a state with a closely divided electorate.
How should the US Supreme Court respond to a State Supreme Court that has allowed itself to become captured by political interests — a state that elects the members of the Court, which means that by manipulating the election process the Court’s composition in favor of one political party will become a self-perpetuating reality.
One way to do that would be to “discipline” the electorate of the state and make them recognize what has been done in their name.
Professor William Jacobson who created the Legal Insurrection blog (highly recommended by me) made an interesting comment yesterday in taking a contrarian view on Justice Alito’s Dec. 9 deadline. He noted that Justice Alito and the Court do not need the briefing from state defendants to respond to the request for injunctive relief made by the Plaintiffs in the Kelly case. These kinds of applications are made to the Court by the dozens throughout the year, and nearly all of them are denied because of the very small likelihood of the Court taking the case to which they are attached, and the lower court decision is going to stand.
If Justice Alito was intending to not take any meaningful action here that might impact the election results he could have simply denied the emergency application, noting that it was not a decision on the merits, and the Plaintiffs were free to file a petition for review in the ordinary course — they just would not get the retrospective relief they were seeking as the election would likely be settled before the Court would act on such a petition.
By not doing so, Justice Alito has left open the possibility that the Court could act in some fashion prior to the meeting of the Electoral College.
A second aspect of Prof. Jacobson’s comment yesterday was to point out the fact that the Court does not need the benefit of enlightenment by the parties’ counsel on the questions presented. The Justices of the Court, their law clerks, and legal staff of the Court are more than capable of analyzing all aspects of the legal issues raised by the Kelly complaint, and the Penn. Supreme Court’s resort to using the doctrine of “laches” to avoid dealing with the complaint on the merits. The Penn. Supreme Court did them a favor by preventing any “record” to be created in the lower state courts which would require review by the Supreme Court. By acting as it did, the Penn. Supreme Court has limited the needed review to the question of the constitutionality of Act 77, and the application of the doctrine of “laches” to dismiss the action.
It is almost certain that Justice Alito knows exactly what the outcome of a vote of the full court will be on the Emergency Application if it was publicly announced today.
The Court has the authority to treat the Emergency Application as a “petition for certiorari” — a request for a determination of the matter on the merits rather than just a request for injunctive relief — and issue an Order upholding or reversing the decision of the Penn. Supreme Court. If such a circumstance exists, where there is a sentiment among a majority of the Court to determine the Kelly case on the merits, it would be imperative to allow the opposing side to brief the issues — and to not give them 24-48 hours to do so. This would explain why Justice Alito gave the state defendants one week to submit their opposition. Given the nature of the issues and the limited record below, a week is far more time than is necessary for such work to be performed.
The opposition is likely meaningless in the sense that the Justices already know what their views are on the issues, but “notice and opportunity to be heard” are the foundations of “due process”. By giving the state until Dec. 9 to respond, Justice Alito has cut off a “notice and opportunity” complaint from the state defendants.
If that is where the outcome is headed, we then have the question of which Justice would be responsible for writing an opinion for the majority. If the Chief Justice voted with the majority, he would decide who writes the opinion. If the Chief Justice were to vote with the minority — which based on his recent comments seems likely — and Justice Thomas is in the majority, then Justice Thomas would decide who would write the opinion.
Has there ever been a Justice of the Supreme Court with more cause to castigate the political parties and various political branches of the federal and state governments for their politicization of the judiciary? Is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and its conduct not the epitome of the politicization of the judiciary?
I can certainly envision this as the moment in history where Justice Thomas stepped forward to say “Enough!”
What might that look like? What outcome could five (or more) Justices impose on the country in order for the populace to wake up and recognize the path we are on with our election processes having been turned into battlegrounds themselves?
I’m not 100% certain in how this would play out beyond a Court decision — maybe that will be my next research project — but let’s suppose that the Court rules in favor of the Kelly Plaintiffs on the merits, and invalidates the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme imposed on the Pennsylvania electorate without their consent as is required under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. What remedy other than simply declaring the 2.3 million mailed-in votes invalid might the Court impose? That would be a “naked” decision by 5 or more Justices to change the winner of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes — a step I think the Court would be highly reluctant to take, as history would always reflect that it was the Court who chose the winner through its jurisprudence.
But, something I think the Court could bring itself to do is to simply declare the Pennsylvania contest voided — and to do so at such a time that prevents Pennsylvania from naming any electors to the Electoral College. That would shut the state out of the 2020 process of electing the next President.
This would be justified by the simple fact that the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the elected officials of the Pennsylvania State Government are all to blame for the manner in which the election was conducted. They violated the rights of all Pennsylvania electors who were entitled to vote on the Constitutional Amendment adopting “no excuse” mail-in voting by imposing that scheme through Act 77 in violation of the Constitution.
It might seem incongruent to “punish” the Nov. 2020 electorate on the basis that the same electorate’s rights were violated by the Legislature and state officials, but the fact of the matter is that all those officials acted in the name of the electorate because they were all put in the position by the electorate that sent them to office in the first place.
Basically, the Legislature and state officials are all “your rascals” so “you” — Pennsylvania — are responsible for the misdeeds they have committed in your name. The original misdeed in this instance was implementing Act 77 in violation of the State’s Constitution, and everything that came after that is tainted as a result.
As I said, preventing Pennsylvania from naming electors and being involved in the 2020 Electoral College, is the MOAB of all outcomes. But it does not put the Court in the position of “selecting” a winner in Pennsylvania, and it places responsibility where it belongs. It is then up to the People of Pennsylvania to decide how to respond to the Legislature and State Officials who caused the mess.
That would be a lesson the remaining 49 states could greatly benefit from.
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 05, 2020 2:15 PM ET
I’ve spent some time reading comments to this story I wrote yesterday as well as many other legal analysts’ views on what — if anything — can be divined from the fact that Justice Samuel Alito ordered the State of Pennsylvania and other defendants to respond by December 9 to the action filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly seeking to declare unlawful the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme used in the November election.
In my story yesterday I noted that the due date for the opposition papers is one day after the last day on which the Pennsylvania electors could be named based on the election results as certified by the Secretary of the Commonwealth and that there is currently no court order which prevents that from happening. As some have noted, the end of the “safe harbor” period — December 8 — is simply a date established by Congress by which a state benefits if all election disputes are settled and the outcome is certified by the state at least six days prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. The states are not required to meet this deadline, it only provides that certain challenges to a state’s naming of electors will not be entertained if the state does meet the deadline.
What many have correctly noted is that this “safe harbor” provision has no legal effect on what the Supreme Court can do if it were to find merit in any election challenge it chooses to hear. Until the Electoral College actually meets and votes, the Court possesses the authority to issue an injunction preventing the electors from any particular state from being able to lawfully participate on the basis that the manner of their selection was legally invalid.
The Court itself gave this “safe harbor” provision notoriety in Bush v. Gore when it used the statute as a basis to not send the matter back to the Supreme Court of Florida so that Court could address the flaws in the statewide “recount” that it had ordered to take place. The lack of consistent statewide standards for executing that recount was the basis upon which the US Supreme Court halted the Florida Court-ordered recount.
The US Supreme Court blocked the recount from resuming with reformulated standards because the Court issued its decision on the last day of the “Safe Harbor” period, and the Court found that the Florida Legislature had expressed an intention to take advantage of that provision in the Florida election statute. As such, there was no time for the Florida Supreme Court to remedy its errors — even though the Electoral College meeting was still a week away. Many legal commentators at the time decried that justification as simply an excuse put forward by the US Supreme Court to stop any further recount from taking place in Florida that might again switch the outcome of the race.
Given the actual purpose of the Dec. 8 “safe harbor” deadline, the fact that Justice Alito has set the date for the opposition papers to be filed as of December 9 is “noteworthy” but not necessarily impactful on what the Court can still do.
Most of the legal pundits on the left have been dismissive of the claims made in the lawsuit brought by Kelly and predicted that the matter would be summarily dismissed. They all conflate the extreme nature of the remedy sought with the underlying merits of the case as their reason for rejecting the merits. I have yet to find a meaningful argument advanced in opposition to Kelly’s claims on the merits — the opposition seems only to focus on the prospect of “disenfranchising” millions of voters who cast votes in a manner that they understood to be lawful based on what they were told by the state and county officials.
Other than remaining “hopeful” in a metaphysical sense, is there anything that might be read into the fact that Justice Alito seems to have given the state defendants an inordinately long amount of time to respond to an Emergency Application for an injunction under the circumstances?
Maybe it’s to give the Court more time.
Maybe it’s to lay the groundwork for use of a “MOAB” (“Mother of all Bombs”) remedy with respect to Pennsylvania. While it might be “shocking” to the political system in 2020, it might also be the “electro-shock paddles to the chest” that the political branches need to shake themselves out of their current descent into open warfare with respect to the ground rules for conducting elections.
This supposition begins with the premise that inside SCOTUS there is a view that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made itself into little more than an extension of the partisan political machine run by the Pennsylvania Democrat Party in the large metropolitan areas of the state. Its only judicial philosophy seems to be to promote the positions advanced by Democrats and defeat the positions advanced by Republicans. In 2020 this partisanship crossed over into the realm of how elections are conducted and threatens to eliminate the possibility of fair electoral outcomes in a state with a closely divided electorate.
How should the US Supreme Court respond to a State Supreme Court that has allowed itself to become captured by political interests — a state that elects the members of the Court, which means that by manipulating the election process the Court’s composition in favor of one political party will become a self-perpetuating reality.
One way to do that would be to “discipline” the electorate of the state and make them recognize what has been done in their name.
Professor William Jacobson who created the Legal Insurrection blog (highly recommended by me) made an interesting comment yesterday in taking a contrarian view on Justice Alito’s Dec. 9 deadline. He noted that Justice Alito and the Court do not need the briefing from state defendants to respond to the request for injunctive relief made by the Plaintiffs in the Kelly case. These kinds of applications are made to the Court by the dozens throughout the year, and nearly all of them are denied because of the very small likelihood of the Court taking the case to which they are attached, and the lower court decision is going to stand.
If Justice Alito was intending to not take any meaningful action here that might impact the election results he could have simply denied the emergency application, noting that it was not a decision on the merits, and the Plaintiffs were free to file a petition for review in the ordinary course — they just would not get the retrospective relief they were seeking as the election would likely be settled before the Court would act on such a petition.
By not doing so, Justice Alito has left open the possibility that the Court could act in some fashion prior to the meeting of the Electoral College.
A second aspect of Prof. Jacobson’s comment yesterday was to point out the fact that the Court does not need the benefit of enlightenment by the parties’ counsel on the questions presented. The Justices of the Court, their law clerks, and legal staff of the Court are more than capable of analyzing all aspects of the legal issues raised by the Kelly complaint, and the Penn. Supreme Court’s resort to using the doctrine of “laches” to avoid dealing with the complaint on the merits. The Penn. Supreme Court did them a favor by preventing any “record” to be created in the lower state courts which would require review by the Supreme Court. By acting as it did, the Penn. Supreme Court has limited the needed review to the question of the constitutionality of Act 77, and the application of the doctrine of “laches” to dismiss the action.
It is almost certain that Justice Alito knows exactly what the outcome of a vote of the full court will be on the Emergency Application if it was publicly announced today.
The Court has the authority to treat the Emergency Application as a “petition for certiorari” — a request for a determination of the matter on the merits rather than just a request for injunctive relief — and issue an Order upholding or reversing the decision of the Penn. Supreme Court. If such a circumstance exists, where there is a sentiment among a majority of the Court to determine the Kelly case on the merits, it would be imperative to allow the opposing side to brief the issues — and to not give them 24-48 hours to do so. This would explain why Justice Alito gave the state defendants one week to submit their opposition. Given the nature of the issues and the limited record below, a week is far more time than is necessary for such work to be performed.
The opposition is likely meaningless in the sense that the Justices already know what their views are on the issues, but “notice and opportunity to be heard” are the foundations of “due process”. By giving the state until Dec. 9 to respond, Justice Alito has cut off a “notice and opportunity” complaint from the state defendants.
If that is where the outcome is headed, we then have the question of which Justice would be responsible for writing an opinion for the majority. If the Chief Justice voted with the majority, he would decide who writes the opinion. If the Chief Justice were to vote with the minority — which based on his recent comments seems likely — and Justice Thomas is in the majority, then Justice Thomas would decide who would write the opinion.
Has there ever been a Justice of the Supreme Court with more cause to castigate the political parties and various political branches of the federal and state governments for their politicization of the judiciary? Is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and its conduct not the epitome of the politicization of the judiciary?
I can certainly envision this as the moment in history where Justice Thomas stepped forward to say “Enough!”
What might that look like? What outcome could five (or more) Justices impose on the country in order for the populace to wake up and recognize the path we are on with our election processes having been turned into battlegrounds themselves?
I’m not 100% certain in how this would play out beyond a Court decision — maybe that will be my next research project — but let’s suppose that the Court rules in favor of the Kelly Plaintiffs on the merits, and invalidates the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme imposed on the Pennsylvania electorate without their consent as is required under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. What remedy other than simply declaring the 2.3 million mailed-in votes invalid might the Court impose? That would be a “naked” decision by 5 or more Justices to change the winner of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes — a step I think the Court would be highly reluctant to take, as history would always reflect that it was the Court who chose the winner through its jurisprudence.
But, something I think the Court could bring itself to do is to simply declare the Pennsylvania contest voided — and to do so at such a time that prevents Pennsylvania from naming any electors to the Electoral College. That would shut the state out of the 2020 process of electing the next President.
This would be justified by the simple fact that the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the elected officials of the Pennsylvania State Government are all to blame for the manner in which the election was conducted. They violated the rights of all Pennsylvania electors who were entitled to vote on the Constitutional Amendment adopting “no excuse” mail-in voting by imposing that scheme through Act 77 in violation of the Constitution.
It might seem incongruent to “punish” the Nov. 2020 electorate on the basis that the same electorate’s rights were violated by the Legislature and state officials, but the fact of the matter is that all those officials acted in the name of the electorate because they were all put in the position by the electorate that sent them to office in the first place.
Basically, the Legislature and state officials are all “your rascals” so “you” — Pennsylvania — are responsible for the misdeeds they have committed in your name. The original misdeed in this instance was implementing Act 77 in violation of the State’s Constitution, and everything that came after that is tainted as a result.
As I said, preventing Pennsylvania from naming electors and being involved in the 2020 Electoral College, is the MOAB of all outcomes. But it does not put the Court in the position of “selecting” a winner in Pennsylvania, and it places responsibility where it belongs. It is then up to the People of Pennsylvania to decide how to respond to the Legislature and State Officials who caused the mess.
That would be a lesson the remaining 49 states could greatly benefit from.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Michigan Secretary of State Issues Order to Delete Election Data Amid Audit Calls
It what can only be seen as an effort to keep the facts from coming to light in the face
nationalfile.com
Michigan Secretary of State Issues Order to Delete Election Data Amid Audit Calls
In a move that implicates her office in efforts to suppress evidence in the face of litigation, Michigan’s Secretary of State moves to erase proof of ballot tampering and vote fraud
by FRANK SALVATO
December 4, 2020
It what can only be seen as an effort to keep the facts from coming to light in the face of problematic issues with Michigan’s 2020 General Election process, a memo has been issued from Michigan’s Secretary of State to destroy data.
The Michigan State Republican Party Friday sounded an alarm about an ethically questionable memo authorized by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson that “is pushing for the mass deletion of election data.”
Michigan Republican Party Chairman Laura Cox in a statement Friday, said that Benson’s office issued orders to clerks in Michigan counties to “delete Electronic Poll Book software and associated files” even as calls to audit the election persist.
Cox was referring to a December 1, 2020, memo from the Michigan Bureau of Elections, an agency overseen by Benson’s office, that read, “[Electronic Poll Book] software and associated files must be deleted from all devices by the seventh calendar day following the final canvass and certification of the election (November 30, 2020) unless a petition for recount has been filed and the recount has not been completed, a post-election audit is planned but has not yet been completed, or the deletion of the data has been stayed by an order of the court or the Secretary of State.”
The order targeted data contained in Electronic Poll Book software and in files contained on laptops and USB drives using during the election.
“Secretary Benson’s move to request the deletion of election data amidst bipartisan calls for an audit is just another example of her putting partisan politics over what’s best for Michigan,” Cox said in the Friday statement.
“With election irregularities rampant across the state,” Cox added, “it is vital that we have this audit before any election data is deleted. Secretary Benson’s move to delete this data before an audit raises a serious question, what are the Democrats hiding?”
This week, witnesses, including a poll worker in Detroit and GOP poll challengers, testified at a Michigan State Legislature hearing into the myriad complaints of vote fraud and ballot tampering throughout the state on Election Day and afterward.
Michigan’s Secretary of State told reporters that there is no evidence of vote fraud, ballot tampering, or irregularities that would overturn the election, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Dominion Advisor Met With John Podesta Offering 'Anything' That Would Help Defeat Trump, According to Email Released by WikiLeaks
An email previously released by WikiLeaks reveals that a Dominion Voting advisor met with John Podesta during Hillary Clinton’s campaign to discuss ways that they could help to defeat Donald Trump. In 2018, Dominion Voting announced that it had been acquired by its management team and Staple...
www.thegatewaypundit.com
Dominion Advisor Met With John Podesta Offering ‘Anything’ That Would Help Defeat Trump, According to Email Released by WikiLeaks
By Cassandra Fairbanks
Published December 5, 2020 at 4:49pm
An email previously released by WikiLeaks reveals that a Dominion Voting advisor met with John Podesta during Hillary Clinton’s campaign to discuss ways that they could help to defeat Donald Trump.
In 2018, Dominion Voting announced that it had been acquired by its management team and Staple Street Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, who was being advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
During Clinton’s campaign, according to an email chain released by WikiLeaks, Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner Kamran S. Bajwa met with John Podesta while offering “anything” to help defeat Donald Trump.
Podesta, at the time, was chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
On Saturday, December 19, 2015, Bajwa wrote to Podesta that “it was a pleasure to meet this past Th in NY. As discussed, I want to do whatever I can by way of sharing ideas, raising funds, recruiting campaign volunteers, and anything else that can help with your campaign. I hope my small efforts to introduce you to a growing group of professionals like myself will be able to boost your important work for Secretary Clinton’s campaign.”
“I come to NY frequently and would welcome the opportunity to sit with you and discuss the best way to coordinate our efforts. If you will be in NY Jan 5, I will be free that day to meet you at any time and place convenient for you.”
Podesta responded by saying “can’t remember whether we discussed Trump’s effect on ISIS/radical recruitment. You following that?”
“John, just a quick note to say I was catching up with my senior partner Bill Singer back in the office and letting him know of my intentions to help your campaign as much as I can. He was very effusive in his praise of you and asked me to send along his regards. I will look forward to being touch after the break,” Bajwa wrote on December 21.
On January 2, 2016, Bajwa again followed up asking to meet with Podesta once again. He said that “I wanted to follow up on our brief conversation a few weeks back and see if you would be available to meet this coming Tuesday in NY? I will be in town for work and my schedule is flexible on Tuesday so if you can meet, I can come to you at a convenient time and place anytime prior to 5pm.”
Podesta then forwarded the email to Clinton campaign staffer Milia Fisher and asked her to find the time for the meeting.
Dominion has become the center of the election fraud scandal as anomalies and evidence of fraud just-so-happen to have been heaviest in states using their machines.
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Shipwreckedcrew is a former DOJ lawyer that writes and tweets under this name to remain anonymous. I have been following him on Twitter for months and his analysis is always interesting.
Is There Another Scenario That Makes Justice Alito's Dec. 9 Response Date Meaningful in Different Way?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 05, 2020 2:15 PM ET
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
I’ve spent some time reading comments to this story I wrote yesterday as well as many other legal analysts’ views on what — if anything — can be divined from the fact that Justice Samuel Alito ordered the State of Pennsylvania and other defendants to respond by December 9 to the action filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly seeking to declare unlawful the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme used in the November election.
In my story yesterday I noted that the due date for the opposition papers is one day after the last day on which the Pennsylvania electors could be named based on the election results as certified by the Secretary of the Commonwealth and that there is currently no court order which prevents that from happening. As some have noted, the end of the “safe harbor” period — December 8 — is simply a date established by Congress by which a state benefits if all election disputes are settled and the outcome is certified by the state at least six days prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. The states are not required to meet this deadline, it only provides that certain challenges to a state’s naming of electors will not be entertained if the state does meet the deadline.
What many have correctly noted is that this “safe harbor” provision has no legal effect on what the Supreme Court can do if it were to find merit in any election challenge it chooses to hear. Until the Electoral College actually meets and votes, the Court possesses the authority to issue an injunction preventing the electors from any particular state from being able to lawfully participate on the basis that the manner of their selection was legally invalid.
The Court itself gave this “safe harbor” provision notoriety in Bush v. Gore when it used the statute as a basis to not send the matter back to the Supreme Court of Florida so that Court could address the flaws in the statewide “recount” that it had ordered to take place. The lack of consistent statewide standards for executing that recount was the basis upon which the US Supreme Court halted the Florida Court-ordered recount.
The US Supreme Court blocked the recount from resuming with reformulated standards because the Court issued its decision on the last day of the “Safe Harbor” period, and the Court found that the Florida Legislature had expressed an intention to take advantage of that provision in the Florida election statute. As such, there was no time for the Florida Supreme Court to remedy its errors — even though the Electoral College meeting was still a week away. Many legal commentators at the time decried that justification as simply an excuse put forward by the US Supreme Court to stop any further recount from taking place in Florida that might again switch the outcome of the race.
Given the actual purpose of the Dec. 8 “safe harbor” deadline, the fact that Justice Alito has set the date for the opposition papers to be filed as of December 9 is “noteworthy” but not necessarily impactful on what the Court can still do.
Most of the legal pundits on the left have been dismissive of the claims made in the lawsuit brought by Kelly and predicted that the matter would be summarily dismissed. They all conflate the extreme nature of the remedy sought with the underlying merits of the case as their reason for rejecting the merits. I have yet to find a meaningful argument advanced in opposition to Kelly’s claims on the merits — the opposition seems only to focus on the prospect of “disenfranchising” millions of voters who cast votes in a manner that they understood to be lawful based on what they were told by the state and county officials.
Other than remaining “hopeful” in a metaphysical sense, is there anything that might be read into the fact that Justice Alito seems to have given the state defendants an inordinately long amount of time to respond to an Emergency Application for an injunction under the circumstances?
Maybe it’s to give the Court more time.
Maybe it’s to lay the groundwork for use of a “MOAB” (“Mother of all Bombs”) remedy with respect to Pennsylvania. While it might be “shocking” to the political system in 2020, it might also be the “electro-shock paddles to the chest” that the political branches need to shake themselves out of their current descent into open warfare with respect to the ground rules for conducting elections.
This supposition begins with the premise that inside SCOTUS there is a view that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made itself into little more than an extension of the partisan political machine run by the Pennsylvania Democrat Party in the large metropolitan areas of the state. Its only judicial philosophy seems to be to promote the positions advanced by Democrats and defeat the positions advanced by Republicans. In 2020 this partisanship crossed over into the realm of how elections are conducted and threatens to eliminate the possibility of fair electoral outcomes in a state with a closely divided electorate.
How should the US Supreme Court respond to a State Supreme Court that has allowed itself to become captured by political interests — a state that elects the members of the Court, which means that by manipulating the election process the Court’s composition in favor of one political party will become a self-perpetuating reality.
One way to do that would be to “discipline” the electorate of the state and make them recognize what has been done in their name.
Professor William Jacobson who created the Legal Insurrection blog (highly recommended by me) made an interesting comment yesterday in taking a contrarian view on Justice Alito’s Dec. 9 deadline. He noted that Justice Alito and the Court do not need the briefing from state defendants to respond to the request for injunctive relief made by the Plaintiffs in the Kelly case. These kinds of applications are made to the Court by the dozens throughout the year, and nearly all of them are denied because of the very small likelihood of the Court taking the case to which they are attached, and the lower court decision is going to stand.
If Justice Alito was intending to not take any meaningful action here that might impact the election results he could have simply denied the emergency application, noting that it was not a decision on the merits, and the Plaintiffs were free to file a petition for review in the ordinary course — they just would not get the retrospective relief they were seeking as the election would likely be settled before the Court would act on such a petition.
By not doing so, Justice Alito has left open the possibility that the Court could act in some fashion prior to the meeting of the Electoral College.
A second aspect of Prof. Jacobson’s comment yesterday was to point out the fact that the Court does not need the benefit of enlightenment by the parties’ counsel on the questions presented. The Justices of the Court, their law clerks, and legal staff of the Court are more than capable of analyzing all aspects of the legal issues raised by the Kelly complaint, and the Penn. Supreme Court’s resort to using the doctrine of “laches” to avoid dealing with the complaint on the merits. The Penn. Supreme Court did them a favor by preventing any “record” to be created in the lower state courts which would require review by the Supreme Court. By acting as it did, the Penn. Supreme Court has limited the needed review to the question of the constitutionality of Act 77, and the application of the doctrine of “laches” to dismiss the action.
It is almost certain that Justice Alito knows exactly what the outcome of a vote of the full court will be on the Emergency Application if it was publicly announced today.
The Court has the authority to treat the Emergency Application as a “petition for certiorari” — a request for a determination of the matter on the merits rather than just a request for injunctive relief — and issue an Order upholding or reversing the decision of the Penn. Supreme Court. If such a circumstance exists, where there is a sentiment among a majority of the Court to determine the Kelly case on the merits, it would be imperative to allow the opposing side to brief the issues — and to not give them 24-48 hours to do so. This would explain why Justice Alito gave the state defendants one week to submit their opposition. Given the nature of the issues and the limited record below, a week is far more time than is necessary for such work to be performed.
The opposition is likely meaningless in the sense that the Justices already know what their views are on the issues, but “notice and opportunity to be heard” are the foundations of “due process”. By giving the state until Dec. 9 to respond, Justice Alito has cut off a “notice and opportunity” complaint from the state defendants.
If that is where the outcome is headed, we then have the question of which Justice would be responsible for writing an opinion for the majority. If the Chief Justice voted with the majority, he would decide who writes the opinion. If the Chief Justice were to vote with the minority — which based on his recent comments seems likely — and Justice Thomas is in the majority, then Justice Thomas would decide who would write the opinion.
Has there ever been a Justice of the Supreme Court with more cause to castigate the political parties and various political branches of the federal and state governments for their politicization of the judiciary? Is the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and its conduct not the epitome of the politicization of the judiciary?
I can certainly envision this as the moment in history where Justice Thomas stepped forward to say “Enough!”
What might that look like? What outcome could five (or more) Justices impose on the country in order for the populace to wake up and recognize the path we are on with our election processes having been turned into battlegrounds themselves?
I’m not 100% certain in how this would play out beyond a Court decision — maybe that will be my next research project — but let’s suppose that the Court rules in favor of the Kelly Plaintiffs on the merits, and invalidates the “no excuse” mail-in voting scheme imposed on the Pennsylvania electorate without their consent as is required under the Pennsylvania State Constitution. What remedy other than simply declaring the 2.3 million mailed-in votes invalid might the Court impose? That would be a “naked” decision by 5 or more Justices to change the winner of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes — a step I think the Court would be highly reluctant to take, as history would always reflect that it was the Court who chose the winner through its jurisprudence.
But, something I think the Court could bring itself to do is to simply declare the Pennsylvania contest voided — and to do so at such a time that prevents Pennsylvania from naming any electors to the Electoral College. That would shut the state out of the 2020 process of electing the next President.
This would be justified by the simple fact that the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the elected officials of the Pennsylvania State Government are all to blame for the manner in which the election was conducted. They violated the rights of all Pennsylvania electors who were entitled to vote on the Constitutional Amendment adopting “no excuse” mail-in voting by imposing that scheme through Act 77 in violation of the Constitution.
It might seem incongruent to “punish” the Nov. 2020 electorate on the basis that the same electorate’s rights were violated by the Legislature and state officials, but the fact of the matter is that all those officials acted in the name of the electorate because they were all put in the position by the electorate that sent them to office in the first place.
Basically, the Legislature and state officials are all “your rascals” so “you” — Pennsylvania — are responsible for the misdeeds they have committed in your name. The original misdeed in this instance was implementing Act 77 in violation of the State’s Constitution, and everything that came after that is tainted as a result.
As I said, preventing Pennsylvania from naming electors and being involved in the 2020 Electoral College, is the MOAB of all outcomes. But it does not put the Court in the position of “selecting” a winner in Pennsylvania, and it places responsibility where it belongs. It is then up to the People of Pennsylvania to decide how to respond to the Legislature and State Officials who caused the mess.
That would be a lesson the remaining 49 states could greatly benefit from.
Take Biden's supposed 306 votes and remove 20 if SCOTUS voids that election in PA =286. Georgia with the suitcase lady has 16. Void that and remove from the Biden column and you still have 270. Wisconsin has 10. Arizona has 11, with an order to do a forensic audit on the machines. Nevada has 6 and Michigan 16. Without 270, you have Congress voting by states - likely a Trump win. The PA void would be a nice big step.
Status of various cases: 2020 Election Litigation Tracker - SCOTUSblog
Last edited:
marsh
On TB every waking moment
STUNNING: Michigan and Pennsylvania Secretaries of State Gave Far Left Rock the Vote Activists Access to Sensitive Data on All Voters
On Monday, Charlie Kirk interviewed former Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline of the Amistad Project, on his Got Freedom show. The interview starts at the 41:00 minute mark, but a bombshell is dropped by Kline at the 43:15 mark, where he reveals how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s contributed...
www.thegatewaypundit.com
STUNNING: Michigan and Pennsylvania Secretaries of State Gave Far Left Rock the Vote Activists Access to Sensitive Data on All Voters
By Patty McMurray
Published December 5, 2020 at 5:45pm
On Monday, Charlie Kirk interviewed former Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline of the Amistad Project, on his Got Freedom show. The interview starts at the 41:00 minute mark, but a bombshell is dropped by Kline at the 43:15 mark, where he reveals how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s contributed $400 million to a leftist group that was used to give Democrat-stronghold areas, especially in critical swing states, an advantage in the November election.
[COMMENT: Youtube has taken down the video. I have found a podcast of the interview here:
'Zuckerboxes,' $400 Million, and the Center for Tech and Civic Life with Phill Kline
Podcasts | Charlie Kirk
charliekirk.com
In the video, Kline reveals how the Democrats stole ballots from Americans. He explained how “third parties,” specifically Rock the Vote, were given “front end access” to voter rolls by Democrat Secretary of States where they actually had the ability to add names to the voter rolls.
Kline explained to Charlie Kirk that Rock The Vote signed an information-sharing contract with PA Democrat Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and MI Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. They gave them full access to their state’s entire voter rolls. According to Phil Kline, their contracts gave them the ability to freely enter data into the poll books. Kline explained that he isn’t saying they added voters, but they are getting access to information showing that voters who don’t exist voted in our elections.
Jocelyn Benson and Kathy Boockvar
Mr. Kline explained how the Zuckerberg backed Center for Election Innovation and Research helped them to cover it up, explaining that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave them $50 million. He asked Kirk, “Do you know what they do?” Kline told Kirk the Zuckerberg funded group does “the software on the poll books.”
Kline told Kirk, “This was an orchestrated and concerted effort to dramatically and improperly influence this election for a specific result that was manifested through something we’ve never seen before, and that’s private-public partnerships that shared sensitive data on individual citizens with the private sector so that they would have front door access to manipulate the election.”
Kline continued, explaining the role of Mark Zuckerberg in their efforts, “And that was played out and funded by a billionaire, who not only is engaged now in censorship, and that he believes that we are too stupid to understand the truth, so he has to protect us from ourselves. He’s also now playing a role now in how we choose our leaders. That money was teamed up with other funds from Google and big tech to directly purchase election officials in managing the election, creating a two-tiered election system—one making it easy, almost impossible for Democrats not to vote and one making it more for Republicans areas to vote.” Kline explained that those things combined violate the Equal Protection Clause of our constitution.
Hogwrench
Senior Member
Robert Barnes
@Barnes_Law
A court ordered statistically significant sample of Arizona's mail in ballots found 11% of the accepted ballots did NOT match according to the Democrats' own expert. That is thirty times more illegal ballots than the margin of victory. Georgia, Pennsylvania & Nevada likely worse.
4:12 PM · Dec 5, 2020
auxman
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit...
marsh
On TB every waking moment
Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
Laches was used as an excuse to preserve the partisan outcome that the PA Supreme Court liked.
redstate.com
Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 01, 2020 8:00 AM ET
Late in the day on Saturday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice the complaint filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly, failed GOP candidate Sean Parnell, and others, claiming that the “no excuse” mail-in ballot option created by the Pennsylvania legislature in 2019 violated Section 14 of Pennsylvania Constitution. That Section limits “absentee” voting to four narrow categories of “absent electors”. The complaint alleged that because Section 14 is itself a constitutional limit on exceptions to in-person voting, the no-excuse mail-in voting statute worked as a de facto amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution without going through the required process for amending the Constitution.
Without addressing the merits of the complaint in any fashion, the Court ordered the case dismissed on the equitable grounds of “laches”, finding that the “facial” challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77, the law which created no-excuse mail-in balloting, was a matter the plaintiffs could have brought the time the Act was passed. The Court found a lack of diligence from the fact that they did nothing for more than a year, during which time both a primary and general election took place in which “no-excuse” mail-in voting procedures were employed.
I’m going to make a point here, at the outset, that is somewhat out of place because I want the readers to keep it in mind as they read through the remainder of this article.
The Kelly complaint alleges that Act 77 changed the voting process in Pennsylvania in a manner that amended the Pennsylvania Constitution, without going through the process for making amendments to the Constitution as set forth therein.
The opponents of the Kelly complaint — joined by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in dismissing the complaint — are possessed by the issue of whether millions of Pennsylvania electors will be “disenfranchised if “no-excuse” absentee voting is declared to be invalid due to the complaint.
What I have not seen commented on — and that failure is why I put this issue here at the top — is that one of the approvals required in the process for amending the Pennsylvania Constitution is that proposed Amendments must receive a majority vote of Pennsylvania electors in a general election.
The voters of Pennsylvania were entitled to have a say in whether the Constitution’s provisions regarding elections and voting should be amended. The General Assembly, Governor, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and County Boards of Election DISENFRANCHISED Pennsylania voters by imposing a “no-excuse” change to the “absentee ballot” provisions of the Constitution without first getting their approval.
Keep that in mind when we get to the issue of “prejudice” as part of the application of the “laches” defense below.
Laches is an “equitable defense” to a meritorious and timely legal claim, where allowing the plaintiff to enforce their claim would be unfair due to prejudice or disadvantage that has resulted from the passage of time, coupled with the “fact” that the plaintiff “sat on their rights.” The United States Supreme Court has described the defense thusly:
So, in fact, there are actually three elements to the doctrine, the first two of which are often conflated — first, neglect on the part of the plaintiff in not asserting the right; second, a lapse of time; and third, circumstances showing prejudice to the adverse party.
The partisan members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were never going to allow the Kelly complaint to be resolved on its merits. All seven members of that court must stand for re-election in partisan contests. Any Judge who had voted in favor of the Kelly complaint would certainly be the subject of open partisan warfare by the Democrat Party of Pennsylvania the next time that Judge runs for re-election.
But, the perfunctory nature of the Court’s treatment of the laches issue might bring it some grief in the days ahead. The Court did not treat the issue carefully, nor did it render a decision with acute legal clarity that is necessary when setting aside a meritorious and timely claim based on an equitable defense.
The Court acknowledges that it rendered its decision only on the filings of the parties in the court below. It allowed no evidence to be taken — which is all the lower court intended to do — even though prior decisions of the Supreme Court describe the application of “laches” as a “fact-intensive” inquiry. Its explanation as to why “laches” should bar the claims raised by Kelly is legally inadequate and fails to account for its own decisions reaching the opposition outcome in earlier election cases.
In short, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court protected the partisan outcome of the electoral tally that it favors — nothing more.
A thorough legal analysis of the historical origins and application of “laches” as a common law equitable defense would be the length of an involved law review article. I am not attempting that here. There is case law on just about every side of the application of “laches” so there is plenty of available language from compelling cases that would contradict what follows.
But I begin my criticism of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with its own words — from two days ago, and from 22 years ago.
In ordering the dismissal of the Kelly Complaint the Court stated:
Let’s stop here. I always enjoy reading the cases cited in support of key legal points made by a party, and Stilp is the first key citation to authority made by the Court in its decision. So, what else did the Court say in Stilp?
Stilp involved a constitutional challenge to a statute passed as part of a multi-state compact on dealing with storage of low-level radioactive waste material. That statute was passed eight years prior to the complaint filed by the Plaintiffs. The challenge to the statute was not based on its substance, but rather on the procedures followed in passing the statute. This became a significant basis for the Court finding that the doctrine of laches — after 8 years of delay — applied as an equitable defense to the Plaintiff’s claim.
Also significant in Stilp was the fact that the application of laches came as part of a motion for summary judgment filed 13 months after the complaint had been filed, and after the parties had conducted extensive discovery, i.e., a “fact-intensive” inquiry on the question.
The parties in Stilp — and the Supreme Court in its decision — distinguished constitutional challenges to the substance of a statute from constitutional challenges to the procedural manner in which a statute was passed. Note the following:
Consider for a moment the “Appellees” in that case — Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylania, and the State of Pennsylvania.
Well, the Governor and State of Pennsylvania just argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Kelly case, and the Supreme Court agreed, that laches should bar a constitutional challenge to the substance of a statute. That is the exact opposite of what the Governor and State “conceded” 22 years ago. So much for legal and political ethics.
The Court in Stilp also referred to its earlier decision in Sprague v. Casey, also decided in 1988, which the Plaintiffs in Stilp cited for the language “laches and prejudice can never be permitted to amend the Constitution.” But the Court noted in Stilp that the cases cited in Sprague for the proposition that “laches and prejudice” could never be allowed to amend the constitution were cases involving a challenge to the substance of the statutes under attack — not the procedure by which the statutes were passed which was the basis for the challenge in Stilp.
This reference in Stilp to Sprague and those two prior cases further reinforced the distinction between the application of laches to constitutional attacks on the substance of a statute, and constitutional attacks on process. Laches could work to bar the latter, but never the former.
Until Act 77, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump.
But let’s consider further the holding in Sprague because that was an election case. The Plaintiff in Sprague was challenging the decision to place two races for two open judicial positions on the general election ballot in November 1988, which the Plaintiff claimed was in violation of Pennsylvania law. The Plaintiff failed to file his complaint for more than six months after the two races were added to the ballots. A difference in Sprague, however, is that the challenge was filed prior to the election taking place.
Nevertheless, there is key language in Sprague that addresses the issue of lack of diligence and prejudice when it comes to the application of laches to an election contest.
Begin with the fact that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that laches did not apply in Sprague even though the Plaintiff did know for many months prior to filing his complaint that the two judgeships were on the ballot, and he did not file his complaint until the eve of the election. But the Court denied the defense of laches to the State Defendants, and their reason for doing so is highly pertinent to the complaint filed by Kelly:
Whaaa??? What???
Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court say in Sprague that whether legislative action is lawful is a question known to both the plaintiff who challenges the action, and the State Officials who took the action, such that each had a concomitant obligation to diligently seek out an answer regarding that legality?
Did the Court find that State Officials cannot complain about the failure of the Plaintiff to act diligently in that regard if the State Officials had not taken any action on the same matter to validate the legality of their actions?
Yes — that’s exactly what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in Sprague. The state officials knew that putting the judgeships on the general election ballot was potentially a violation of state law, and they did not seek judicial sanction for their decision as they could have done. Since they had not been diligent in seeking to defend their action, they could not — in equity — complain about the Plaintiff’s lack of diligence in seeking to challenge their action. “He who seeks equity must do equity.”
The same is true with regard to Act 77. The Legislature and Governor knew Act 77’s introduction of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting was an expansion of the “absentee voting” limits established by Sec. 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Their knowledge is reflected in the fact that they simultaneously advanced separate legislation intended to be a proposed amendment to Sec. 14. They faulted Kelly and the other Plaintiffs for not seeking to make their factual challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77 immediately upon its passage, but they failed to seek a judicial sanction of their immediate implementation of Act 77’s adoption of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting.
That is the precise basis upon which the same Court in Sprague determined that it could not find a lack of diligence on the part of the Plaintiff in that case. .
In dismissing the Kelly complaint, the Supreme Court doesn’t even mention the fact — even though it refers to its earlier decision in Sprague.
But there is a second aspect to the “imprecision” of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, which is based on the briefing of the issue to the Court by the State Defendants, and that is the issue of “prejudice.”
As I noted by italisizing part of the language of the United States Supreme Court on “prejudice” that I quoted near the top — the reference is to prejudice to “the respondent” — the defendant in the case.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court followed the lead of the briefing by the State — it relies on “prejudice” to voters who would be “disenfranchised” by the remedy sought by the Kelly complaint. It did so without even pausing to consider whether this is appropriate “prejudice” that the Court should take into account in determining whether the defense of laches should apply.
“Laches” is an affirmative defense. Voters aren’t parties to the Kelly complaint and do not assert “defenses” to the claims made. Voters aren’t “prejudiced” by the fact that the case is pursued. There is no outcome yet in the case. There is no “disenfranchisement” unless Kelly prevails on the merits and invalidating all mail-in ballots is the only remedy to be imposed.
Under Pennsylvania law, an invalidly cast ballot is void that shall not be counted in the tally of votes. A ballot is either validly cast according to law or it is invalidly cast — the cause is irrelevant.
There are invalidly cast ballots in every election, and those ballots are set aside. Those voters are disenfranchised. So voter “disenfranchisement” is not an uncommon occurrence in elections.
The fact that there may be 2.3 million such invalid ballots is not the fault of the Plaintiffs bringing the Kelly complaint. By refusing to allow the case to be resolved on its merits, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is likely violating Pennsylvania law by allowing invalid votes to be included in the final tally.
And this takes me back to the point I made near the top. The voters of Pennsylvania are given a meaningful and necessary role in amending their State’s constitution. A vote of a majority of the electors in a general election is the required final step to adoption of such amendments. The Defendants in the Kelly complaint deprived the Electors of their right to validate the proposed amendment passed by the General Assembly, and they put the amendment in place without their approval.
That was “disenfranchisement” of the Pennsylvania electorate. Who is to say that Pennsylvania voters might have rejected “no excuse” mail-in balloting if not for being disenfranchised.
Let us not kid ourselves about what the real “prejudice” is the Supreme Court was worried about with regard to the Kelly complaint. The real prejudice that concerned the Court was that Joe Biden might not get the benefit of the illicit acts of partisan democrats in control of the state’s elections.
Addendum: There are questions in the Comments about whether the US Supreme Court might take up this case. This is a final judgment of the highest court of the State of Pennsylvania, so it is a decision which is reviewable by the US Supreme Court. But, as a general proposition, the Court only reviews decisions from state courts that implicate federal law. If the decision is viewed purely as a matter of state law, the US Supreme Court generally defers to the highest Court in the State to resolve such issues.
But “laches” is not “state law” — it is an equitable defense to a claim. The “claim” made here involves the process for Amending the Pennsylvania Constitution with regard to the “manner” by which Electors to the Electoral College are chosen.
The Pennsylvania Legislature — and Pennsylvania voters — have placed certain aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Legislature and the State Actors are alleged to have changed those aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in a way not allowed by the Constitution. That is a question the US Supreme Court could take up if it so chooses.
20Gauge
TB Fanatic
I would what they consider "statistically significant"? 1000 / 10,000 ?
Robert Barnes
@Barnes_Law
A court ordered statistically significant sample of Arizona's mail in ballots found 11% of the accepted ballots did NOT match according to the Democrats' own expert. That is thirty times more illegal ballots than the margin of victory. Georgia, Pennsylvania & Nevada likely worse.
4:12 PM · Dec 5, 2020
20Gauge
TB Fanatic
We all know lawyers talk out of both sides of their butt hole.Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
Laches was used as an excuse to preserve the partisan outcome that the PA Supreme Court liked.
Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 01, 2020 8:00 AM ET
Late in the day on Saturday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice the complaint filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly, failed GOP candidate Sean Parnell, and others, claiming that the “no excuse” mail-in ballot option created by the Pennsylvania legislature in 2019 violated Section 14 of Pennsylvania Constitution. That Section limits “absentee” voting to four narrow categories of “absent electors”. The complaint alleged that because Section 14 is itself a constitutional limit on exceptions to in-person voting, the no-excuse mail-in voting statute worked as a de facto amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution without going through the required process for amending the Constitution.
Without addressing the merits of the complaint in any fashion, the Court ordered the case dismissed on the equitable grounds of “laches”, finding that the “facial” challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77, the law which created no-excuse mail-in balloting, was a matter the plaintiffs could have brought the time the Act was passed. The Court found a lack of diligence from the fact that they did nothing for more than a year, during which time both a primary and general election took place in which “no-excuse” mail-in voting procedures were employed.
I’m going to make a point here, at the outset, that is somewhat out of place because I want the readers to keep it in mind as they read through the remainder of this article.
The Kelly complaint alleges that Act 77 changed the voting process in Pennsylvania in a manner that amended the Pennsylvania Constitution, without going through the process for making amendments to the Constitution as set forth therein.
The opponents of the Kelly complaint — joined by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in dismissing the complaint — are possessed by the issue of whether millions of Pennsylvania electors will be “disenfranchised if “no-excuse” absentee voting is declared to be invalid due to the complaint.
What I have not seen commented on — and that failure is why I put this issue here at the top — is that one of the approvals required in the process for amending the Pennsylvania Constitution is that proposed Amendments must receive a majority vote of Pennsylvania electors in a general election.
The voters of Pennsylvania were entitled to have a say in whether the Constitution’s provisions regarding elections and voting should be amended. The General Assembly, Governor, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and County Boards of Election DISENFRANCHISED Pennsylania voters by imposing a “no-excuse” change to the “absentee ballot” provisions of the Constitution without first getting their approval.
Keep that in mind when we get to the issue of “prejudice” as part of the application of the “laches” defense below.
Laches is an “equitable defense” to a meritorious and timely legal claim, where allowing the plaintiff to enforce their claim would be unfair due to prejudice or disadvantage that has resulted from the passage of time, coupled with the “fact” that the plaintiff “sat on their rights.” The United States Supreme Court has described the defense thusly:
So, in fact, there are actually three elements to the doctrine, the first two of which are often conflated — first, neglect on the part of the plaintiff in not asserting the right; second, a lapse of time; and third, circumstances showing prejudice to the adverse party.
The partisan members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were never going to allow the Kelly complaint to be resolved on its merits. All seven members of that court must stand for re-election in partisan contests. Any Judge who had voted in favor of the Kelly complaint would certainly be the subject of open partisan warfare by the Democrat Party of Pennsylvania the next time that Judge runs for re-election.
But, the perfunctory nature of the Court’s treatment of the laches issue might bring it some grief in the days ahead. The Court did not treat the issue carefully, nor did it render a decision with acute legal clarity that is necessary when setting aside a meritorious and timely claim based on an equitable defense.
The Court acknowledges that it rendered its decision only on the filings of the parties in the court below. It allowed no evidence to be taken — which is all the lower court intended to do — even though prior decisions of the Supreme Court describe the application of “laches” as a “fact-intensive” inquiry. Its explanation as to why “laches” should bar the claims raised by Kelly is legally inadequate and fails to account for its own decisions reaching the opposition outcome in earlier election cases.
In short, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court protected the partisan outcome of the electoral tally that it favors — nothing more.
A thorough legal analysis of the historical origins and application of “laches” as a common law equitable defense would be the length of an involved law review article. I am not attempting that here. There is case law on just about every side of the application of “laches” so there is plenty of available language from compelling cases that would contradict what follows.
But I begin my criticism of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with its own words — from two days ago, and from 22 years ago.
In ordering the dismissal of the Kelly Complaint the Court stated:
Let’s stop here. I always enjoy reading the cases cited in support of key legal points made by a party, and Stilp is the first key citation to authority made by the Court in its decision. So, what else did the Court say in Stilp?
Stilp involved a constitutional challenge to a statute passed as part of a multi-state compact on dealing with storage of low-level radioactive waste material. That statute was passed eight years prior to the complaint filed by the Plaintiffs. The challenge to the statute was not based on its substance, but rather on the procedures followed in passing the statute. This became a significant basis for the Court finding that the doctrine of laches — after 8 years of delay — applied as an equitable defense to the Plaintiff’s claim.
Also significant in Stilp was the fact that the application of laches came as part of a motion for summary judgment filed 13 months after the complaint had been filed, and after the parties had conducted extensive discovery, i.e., a “fact-intensive” inquiry on the question.
The parties in Stilp — and the Supreme Court in its decision — distinguished constitutional challenges to the substance of a statute from constitutional challenges to the procedural manner in which a statute was passed. Note the following:
Consider for a moment the “Appellees” in that case — Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylania, and the State of Pennsylvania.
Well, the Governor and State of Pennsylvania just argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Kelly case, and the Supreme Court agreed, that laches should bar a constitutional challenge to the substance of a statute. That is the exact opposite of what the Governor and State “conceded” 22 years ago. So much for legal and political ethics.
The Court in Stilp also referred to its earlier decision in Sprague v. Casey, also decided in 1988, which the Plaintiffs in Stilp cited for the language “laches and prejudice can never be permitted to amend the Constitution.” But the Court noted in Stilp that the cases cited in Sprague for the proposition that “laches and prejudice” could never be allowed to amend the constitution were cases involving a challenge to the substance of the statutes under attack — not the procedure by which the statutes were passed which was the basis for the challenge in Stilp.
This reference in Stilp to Sprague and those two prior cases further reinforced the distinction between the application of laches to constitutional attacks on the substance of a statute, and constitutional attacks on process. Laches could work to bar the latter, but never the former.
Until Act 77, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump.
But let’s consider further the holding in Sprague because that was an election case. The Plaintiff in Sprague was challenging the decision to place two races for two open judicial positions on the general election ballot in November 1988, which the Plaintiff claimed was in violation of Pennsylvania law. The Plaintiff failed to file his complaint for more than six months after the two races were added to the ballots. A difference in Sprague, however, is that the challenge was filed prior to the election taking place.
Nevertheless, there is key language in Sprague that addresses the issue of lack of diligence and prejudice when it comes to the application of laches to an election contest.
Begin with the fact that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that laches did not apply in Sprague even though the Plaintiff did know for many months prior to filing his complaint that the two judgeships were on the ballot, and he did not file his complaint until the eve of the election. But the Court denied the defense of laches to the State Defendants, and their reason for doing so is highly pertinent to the complaint filed by Kelly:
Whaaa??? What???
Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court say in Sprague that whether legislative action is lawful is a question known to both the plaintiff who challenges the action, and the State Officials who took the action, such that each had a concomitant obligation to diligently seek out an answer regarding that legality?
Did the Court find that State Officials cannot complain about the failure of the Plaintiff to act diligently in that regard if the State Officials had not taken any action on the same matter to validate the legality of their actions?
Yes — that’s exactly what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in Sprague. The state officials knew that putting the judgeships on the general election ballot was potentially a violation of state law, and they did not seek judicial sanction for their decision as they could have done. Since they had not been diligent in seeking to defend their action, they could not — in equity — complain about the Plaintiff’s lack of diligence in seeking to challenge their action. “He who seeks equity must do equity.”
The same is true with regard to Act 77. The Legislature and Governor knew Act 77’s introduction of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting was an expansion of the “absentee voting” limits established by Sec. 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Their knowledge is reflected in the fact that they simultaneously advanced separate legislation intended to be a proposed amendment to Sec. 14. They faulted Kelly and the other Plaintiffs for not seeking to make their factual challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77 immediately upon its passage, but they failed to seek a judicial sanction of their immediate implementation of Act 77’s adoption of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting.
That is the precise basis upon which the same Court in Sprague determined that it could not find a lack of diligence on the part of the Plaintiff in that case. .
In dismissing the Kelly complaint, the Supreme Court doesn’t even mention the fact — even though it refers to its earlier decision in Sprague.
But there is a second aspect to the “imprecision” of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, which is based on the briefing of the issue to the Court by the State Defendants, and that is the issue of “prejudice.”
As I noted by italisizing part of the language of the United States Supreme Court on “prejudice” that I quoted near the top — the reference is to prejudice to “the respondent” — the defendant in the case.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court followed the lead of the briefing by the State — it relies on “prejudice” to voters who would be “disenfranchised” by the remedy sought by the Kelly complaint. It did so without even pausing to consider whether this is appropriate “prejudice” that the Court should take into account in determining whether the defense of laches should apply.
“Laches” is an affirmative defense. Voters aren’t parties to the Kelly complaint and do not assert “defenses” to the claims made. Voters aren’t “prejudiced” by the fact that the case is pursued. There is no outcome yet in the case. There is no “disenfranchisement” unless Kelly prevails on the merits and invalidating all mail-in ballots is the only remedy to be imposed.
Under Pennsylvania law, an invalidly cast ballot is void that shall not be counted in the tally of votes. A ballot is either validly cast according to law or it is invalidly cast — the cause is irrelevant.
There are invalidly cast ballots in every election, and those ballots are set aside. Those voters are disenfranchised. So voter “disenfranchisement” is not an uncommon occurrence in elections.
The fact that there may be 2.3 million such invalid ballots is not the fault of the Plaintiffs bringing the Kelly complaint. By refusing to allow the case to be resolved on its merits, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is likely violating Pennsylvania law by allowing invalid votes to be included in the final tally.
And this takes me back to the point I made near the top. The voters of Pennsylvania are given a meaningful and necessary role in amending their State’s constitution. A vote of a majority of the electors in a general election is the required final step to adoption of such amendments. The Defendants in the Kelly complaint deprived the Electors of their right to validate the proposed amendment passed by the General Assembly, and they put the amendment in place without their approval.
That was “disenfranchisement” of the Pennsylvania electorate. Who is to say that Pennsylvania voters might have rejected “no excuse” mail-in balloting if not for being disenfranchised.
Let us not kid ourselves about what the real “prejudice” is the Supreme Court was worried about with regard to the Kelly complaint. The real prejudice that concerned the Court was that Joe Biden might not get the benefit of the illicit acts of partisan democrats in control of the state’s elections.
Addendum: There are questions in the Comments about whether the US Supreme Court might take up this case. This is a final judgment of the highest court of the State of Pennsylvania, so it is a decision which is reviewable by the US Supreme Court. But, as a general proposition, the Court only reviews decisions from state courts that implicate federal law. If the decision is viewed purely as a matter of state law, the US Supreme Court generally defers to the highest Court in the State to resolve such issues.
But “laches” is not “state law” — it is an equitable defense to a claim. The “claim” made here involves the process for Amending the Pennsylvania Constitution with regard to the “manner” by which Electors to the Electoral College are chosen.
The Pennsylvania Legislature — and Pennsylvania voters — have placed certain aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Legislature and the State Actors are alleged to have changed those aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in a way not allowed by the Constitution. That is a question the US Supreme Court could take up if it so chooses.
Yet, the idea that a law is acceptable simply because you were late to the game is wrong. So slavery is legal because a slave (the only person with standing) can not file as he is a slave and thus has no standing.
OR
DE FACTO changing the state Constitution by law is not really changing the Constitution. There is a process to do so and you can not do it by simply passing a law. EVEN CALIFORNIA has not gone quite that far over the edge.
OR
You can not file before hand as nothing has happened yet. Once something has happened, you can not file as it is too late. When was the proper time to file then?
OR
never mind.....
Cacheman
Ultra MAGA!
She was refusing to see anything because she was there stuffing/counting ballots....
BUSTED
View: https://twitter.com/elenaparent/status/1335325628674007044?s=20
A month earlier....
And just to top everything thing off she was running for re-election appearantly
The irony of it ALL IS PRICELESS!
Attachments
Last edited:
Tom McDowell
BAMN
RT 3:21
Analyst finds thousands of illegal Ga Ballots – files suit
260,944 views
•Dec 5, 2020
One America News Network
1.29M subscribers
An election integrity group filed a bombshell case in Georgia, bolstering the Trump legal team’s case against the election. One America’s Chanel Rion has more from Atlanta.
====
From CRIME - Matt Braynard: FBI Has Requested Vote Fraud Research
Braynard said his team’s work has been and is being presented at hearings and in court filings, “Update: – I will be presenting the VIP findings in person at the #ArizonaHearing. – Work from the VIP has now appeared or will appear in court filings in PA, GA, MI, WI, and AZ, including declarations we collected.”
The OAN clip posted above updates the progress in GA. Perhaps some positive traction.
===
.
20Gauge
TB Fanatic
The problem is some judge won't over turn anything or have a revote or eliminate any votes that will change the outcome. They are too invested in how the system works. You don't get invited to things if you over turn Presidential elections.View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rQnstm6lvw
RT 3:21
Analyst finds thousands of illegal Ga Ballots – files suit
260,944 views
•Dec 5, 2020
One America News Network
1.29M subscribers
An election integrity group filed a bombshell case in Georgia, bolstering the Trump legal team’s case against the election. One America’s Chanel Rion has more from Atlanta.
====
From CRIME - Matt Braynard: FBI Has Requested Vote Fraud Research
Braynard said his team’s work has been and is being presented at hearings and in court filings, “Update: – I will be presenting the VIP findings in person at the #ArizonaHearing. – Work from the VIP has now appeared or will appear in court filings in PA, GA, MI, WI, and AZ, including declarations we collected.”
The OAN clip posted above updates the progress in GA. Perhaps some positive traction.
===
.
It will be up to the legislatures to fix this issue.
The question remaining is do they have the balls to do so?
MERDE.....
mzkitty
I give up.
No, the world doesn't all see it. You should read lib/Dem tweets sometimes. They're crazy. This morning one of them asked for the White House to be fumigated when Trump moves out. Rabid, I tells ya. They will literally shred you if given the chance. They still can't say ugly enough things about people who aren't them.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
Stuff a fork into the Biden candidacy or "Ready, Load, Lock, Aim, ..."
Tom McDowell
BAMN
posted by VD @ 12/06/2020 10:37:00 AM Mailing List signup 32 comments
Dominion and the virtual precincts
Neon Revolt explains MathAnon's reverse-engineering of the Dominion vote-flipping algorithm:
UPDATE: Virtual precincts is why this witness statement is not in error. Far from being a debunking, it supports what actually happened.
An election lawsuit by Sidney Powell, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, cites a witness who claims to have seen something strange with the votes counted in Michigan's Edison County.
===
.
Dominion and the virtual precincts
Neon Revolt explains MathAnon's reverse-engineering of the Dominion vote-flipping algorithm:
This should be quite easy to prove, especially given the fact that Team Trump appears to have access to the original ballot data. It also explains why small numbers of flipped votes are being found in even the smallest counties where there were Dominion machines. The objective was to spread them out so that it looked organic, but the size of Trump's unexpected lead precluded the planned restraint in the largest Democratic strongholds.
UPDATE: Virtual precincts is why this witness statement is not in error. Far from being a debunking, it supports what actually happened.
An election lawsuit by Sidney Powell, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, cites a witness who claims to have seen something strange with the votes counted in Michigan's Edison County.
===
.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
No, the world doesn't all see it. You should read lib/Dem tweets sometimes. They're crazy. This morning one of them asked for the White House to be fumigated when Trump moves out. Rabid, I tells ya. They will literally shred you if given the chance. They still can't say ugly enough things about people who aren't them.
View attachment 236917
Well we had posts saying the same thing about fumigation when Bams was on the way out.
mzkitty
I give up.
Calhounshd
Veteran Member
Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
Laches was used as an excuse to preserve the partisan outcome that the PA Supreme Court liked.
Has the Penn Supreme Court Invited Scrutiny and Rebuke By Relying on "Laches" to Dismiss an Incovenient Complaint?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Dec 01, 2020 8:00 AM ET
Late in the day on Saturday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice the complaint filed by GOP Congressman Mike Kelly, failed GOP candidate Sean Parnell, and others, claiming that the “no excuse” mail-in ballot option created by the Pennsylvania legislature in 2019 violated Section 14 of Pennsylvania Constitution. That Section limits “absentee” voting to four narrow categories of “absent electors”. The complaint alleged that because Section 14 is itself a constitutional limit on exceptions to in-person voting, the no-excuse mail-in voting statute worked as a de facto amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution without going through the required process for amending the Constitution.
Without addressing the merits of the complaint in any fashion, the Court ordered the case dismissed on the equitable grounds of “laches”, finding that the “facial” challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77, the law which created no-excuse mail-in balloting, was a matter the plaintiffs could have brought the time the Act was passed. The Court found a lack of diligence from the fact that they did nothing for more than a year, during which time both a primary and general election took place in which “no-excuse” mail-in voting procedures were employed.
I’m going to make a point here, at the outset, that is somewhat out of place because I want the readers to keep it in mind as they read through the remainder of this article.
The Kelly complaint alleges that Act 77 changed the voting process in Pennsylvania in a manner that amended the Pennsylvania Constitution, without going through the process for making amendments to the Constitution as set forth therein.
The opponents of the Kelly complaint — joined by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in dismissing the complaint — are possessed by the issue of whether millions of Pennsylvania electors will be “disenfranchised if “no-excuse” absentee voting is declared to be invalid due to the complaint.
What I have not seen commented on — and that failure is why I put this issue here at the top — is that one of the approvals required in the process for amending the Pennsylvania Constitution is that proposed Amendments must receive a majority vote of Pennsylvania electors in a general election.
The voters of Pennsylvania were entitled to have a say in whether the Constitution’s provisions regarding elections and voting should be amended. The General Assembly, Governor, Secretary of the Commonwealth, and County Boards of Election DISENFRANCHISED Pennsylania voters by imposing a “no-excuse” change to the “absentee ballot” provisions of the Constitution without first getting their approval.
Keep that in mind when we get to the issue of “prejudice” as part of the application of the “laches” defense below.
Laches is an “equitable defense” to a meritorious and timely legal claim, where allowing the plaintiff to enforce their claim would be unfair due to prejudice or disadvantage that has resulted from the passage of time, coupled with the “fact” that the plaintiff “sat on their rights.” The United States Supreme Court has described the defense thusly:
So, in fact, there are actually three elements to the doctrine, the first two of which are often conflated — first, neglect on the part of the plaintiff in not asserting the right; second, a lapse of time; and third, circumstances showing prejudice to the adverse party.
The partisan members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were never going to allow the Kelly complaint to be resolved on its merits. All seven members of that court must stand for re-election in partisan contests. Any Judge who had voted in favor of the Kelly complaint would certainly be the subject of open partisan warfare by the Democrat Party of Pennsylvania the next time that Judge runs for re-election.
But, the perfunctory nature of the Court’s treatment of the laches issue might bring it some grief in the days ahead. The Court did not treat the issue carefully, nor did it render a decision with acute legal clarity that is necessary when setting aside a meritorious and timely claim based on an equitable defense.
The Court acknowledges that it rendered its decision only on the filings of the parties in the court below. It allowed no evidence to be taken — which is all the lower court intended to do — even though prior decisions of the Supreme Court describe the application of “laches” as a “fact-intensive” inquiry. Its explanation as to why “laches” should bar the claims raised by Kelly is legally inadequate and fails to account for its own decisions reaching the opposition outcome in earlier election cases.
In short, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court protected the partisan outcome of the electoral tally that it favors — nothing more.
A thorough legal analysis of the historical origins and application of “laches” as a common law equitable defense would be the length of an involved law review article. I am not attempting that here. There is case law on just about every side of the application of “laches” so there is plenty of available language from compelling cases that would contradict what follows.
But I begin my criticism of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with its own words — from two days ago, and from 22 years ago.
In ordering the dismissal of the Kelly Complaint the Court stated:
Let’s stop here. I always enjoy reading the cases cited in support of key legal points made by a party, and Stilp is the first key citation to authority made by the Court in its decision. So, what else did the Court say in Stilp?
Stilp involved a constitutional challenge to a statute passed as part of a multi-state compact on dealing with storage of low-level radioactive waste material. That statute was passed eight years prior to the complaint filed by the Plaintiffs. The challenge to the statute was not based on its substance, but rather on the procedures followed in passing the statute. This became a significant basis for the Court finding that the doctrine of laches — after 8 years of delay — applied as an equitable defense to the Plaintiff’s claim.
Also significant in Stilp was the fact that the application of laches came as part of a motion for summary judgment filed 13 months after the complaint had been filed, and after the parties had conducted extensive discovery, i.e., a “fact-intensive” inquiry on the question.
The parties in Stilp — and the Supreme Court in its decision — distinguished constitutional challenges to the substance of a statute from constitutional challenges to the procedural manner in which a statute was passed. Note the following:
Consider for a moment the “Appellees” in that case — Tom Ridge, Governor of Pennsylania, and the State of Pennsylvania.
Well, the Governor and State of Pennsylvania just argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Kelly case, and the Supreme Court agreed, that laches should bar a constitutional challenge to the substance of a statute. That is the exact opposite of what the Governor and State “conceded” 22 years ago. So much for legal and political ethics.
The Court in Stilp also referred to its earlier decision in Sprague v. Casey, also decided in 1988, which the Plaintiffs in Stilp cited for the language “laches and prejudice can never be permitted to amend the Constitution.” But the Court noted in Stilp that the cases cited in Sprague for the proposition that “laches and prejudice” could never be allowed to amend the constitution were cases involving a challenge to the substance of the statutes under attack — not the procedure by which the statutes were passed which was the basis for the challenge in Stilp.
This reference in Stilp to Sprague and those two prior cases further reinforced the distinction between the application of laches to constitutional attacks on the substance of a statute, and constitutional attacks on process. Laches could work to bar the latter, but never the former.
Until Act 77, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump.
But let’s consider further the holding in Sprague because that was an election case. The Plaintiff in Sprague was challenging the decision to place two races for two open judicial positions on the general election ballot in November 1988, which the Plaintiff claimed was in violation of Pennsylvania law. The Plaintiff failed to file his complaint for more than six months after the two races were added to the ballots. A difference in Sprague, however, is that the challenge was filed prior to the election taking place.
Nevertheless, there is key language in Sprague that addresses the issue of lack of diligence and prejudice when it comes to the application of laches to an election contest.
Begin with the fact that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that laches did not apply in Sprague even though the Plaintiff did know for many months prior to filing his complaint that the two judgeships were on the ballot, and he did not file his complaint until the eve of the election. But the Court denied the defense of laches to the State Defendants, and their reason for doing so is highly pertinent to the complaint filed by Kelly:
Whaaa??? What???
Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court say in Sprague that whether legislative action is lawful is a question known to both the plaintiff who challenges the action, and the State Officials who took the action, such that each had a concomitant obligation to diligently seek out an answer regarding that legality?
Did the Court find that State Officials cannot complain about the failure of the Plaintiff to act diligently in that regard if the State Officials had not taken any action on the same matter to validate the legality of their actions?
Yes — that’s exactly what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in Sprague. The state officials knew that putting the judgeships on the general election ballot was potentially a violation of state law, and they did not seek judicial sanction for their decision as they could have done. Since they had not been diligent in seeking to defend their action, they could not — in equity — complain about the Plaintiff’s lack of diligence in seeking to challenge their action. “He who seeks equity must do equity.”
The same is true with regard to Act 77. The Legislature and Governor knew Act 77’s introduction of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting was an expansion of the “absentee voting” limits established by Sec. 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Their knowledge is reflected in the fact that they simultaneously advanced separate legislation intended to be a proposed amendment to Sec. 14. They faulted Kelly and the other Plaintiffs for not seeking to make their factual challenge to the constitutionality of Act 77 immediately upon its passage, but they failed to seek a judicial sanction of their immediate implementation of Act 77’s adoption of “no-excuse” mail-in balloting.
That is the precise basis upon which the same Court in Sprague determined that it could not find a lack of diligence on the part of the Plaintiff in that case. .
In dismissing the Kelly complaint, the Supreme Court doesn’t even mention the fact — even though it refers to its earlier decision in Sprague.
But there is a second aspect to the “imprecision” of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision, which is based on the briefing of the issue to the Court by the State Defendants, and that is the issue of “prejudice.”
As I noted by italisizing part of the language of the United States Supreme Court on “prejudice” that I quoted near the top — the reference is to prejudice to “the respondent” — the defendant in the case.
But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court followed the lead of the briefing by the State — it relies on “prejudice” to voters who would be “disenfranchised” by the remedy sought by the Kelly complaint. It did so without even pausing to consider whether this is appropriate “prejudice” that the Court should take into account in determining whether the defense of laches should apply.
“Laches” is an affirmative defense. Voters aren’t parties to the Kelly complaint and do not assert “defenses” to the claims made. Voters aren’t “prejudiced” by the fact that the case is pursued. There is no outcome yet in the case. There is no “disenfranchisement” unless Kelly prevails on the merits and invalidating all mail-in ballots is the only remedy to be imposed.
Under Pennsylvania law, an invalidly cast ballot is void that shall not be counted in the tally of votes. A ballot is either validly cast according to law or it is invalidly cast — the cause is irrelevant.
There are invalidly cast ballots in every election, and those ballots are set aside. Those voters are disenfranchised. So voter “disenfranchisement” is not an uncommon occurrence in elections.
The fact that there may be 2.3 million such invalid ballots is not the fault of the Plaintiffs bringing the Kelly complaint. By refusing to allow the case to be resolved on its merits, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is likely violating Pennsylvania law by allowing invalid votes to be included in the final tally.
And this takes me back to the point I made near the top. The voters of Pennsylvania are given a meaningful and necessary role in amending their State’s constitution. A vote of a majority of the electors in a general election is the required final step to adoption of such amendments. The Defendants in the Kelly complaint deprived the Electors of their right to validate the proposed amendment passed by the General Assembly, and they put the amendment in place without their approval.
That was “disenfranchisement” of the Pennsylvania electorate. Who is to say that Pennsylvania voters might have rejected “no excuse” mail-in balloting if not for being disenfranchised.
Let us not kid ourselves about what the real “prejudice” is the Supreme Court was worried about with regard to the Kelly complaint. The real prejudice that concerned the Court was that Joe Biden might not get the benefit of the illicit acts of partisan democrats in control of the state’s elections.
Addendum: There are questions in the Comments about whether the US Supreme Court might take up this case. This is a final judgment of the highest court of the State of Pennsylvania, so it is a decision which is reviewable by the US Supreme Court. But, as a general proposition, the Court only reviews decisions from state courts that implicate federal law. If the decision is viewed purely as a matter of state law, the US Supreme Court generally defers to the highest Court in the State to resolve such issues.
But “laches” is not “state law” — it is an equitable defense to a claim. The “claim” made here involves the process for Amending the Pennsylvania Constitution with regard to the “manner” by which Electors to the Electoral College are chosen.
The Pennsylvania Legislature — and Pennsylvania voters — have placed certain aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Legislature and the State Actors are alleged to have changed those aspects of the “manner” for selecting electors in a way not allowed by the Constitution. That is a question the US Supreme Court could take up if it so chooses.
There are invalidly cast ballots in every election, and those ballots are set aside. Those voters are disenfranchised. So voter “disenfranchisement” is not an uncommon occurrence in elections.
The fact that there may be 2.3 million such invalid ballots is not the fault of the Plaintiffs bringing the Kelly complaint. By refusing to allow the case to be resolved on its merits, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is likely violating Pennsylvania law by allowing invalid votes to be included in the final tally.
Fresh meat right there ^^^^^^^.
Tarryn
Senior Member
DeKalb County Cannot Find Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes: 'It Has Not Been Determined If Responsive Records to Your Request Exist' - The Georgia Star News
DeKalb County Cannot Find Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes: ‘It Has Not Been Determined If Responsive Records to Your Request Exist’
December 5, 2020 Tiffany Morgan
DeKalb County responded to an Open Records Request from The Georgia Star News to produce the ballot transfer forms that formed the critical chain of custody link in the absentee ballots deposited in the near 300 drop boxes in the state and transported to county election offices in a letter received on Friday that said the county did not know if such records exist.
Earlier this week, the Secretary of States’ office told Breitbart News that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election were delivered by mail vs. drop box, but the counties should know.
The Georgia Star News filed an open records request on Tuesday for all “ballot transfer forms” from the Nov. 3 General Election in DeKalb County. But there is no way to determine the chain of custody.
The open records request reply, received from Assistant County Attorney at DeKalb County Dexter Q. Bond, Jr., stated, “it has not yet been determined if responsive records to your request exist.”
The ballot transfer forms that remain unknown in DeKalb are a part of Georgia’s new Election Code implemented this past summer.
The DeKalb County response was unusual in several ways.
The Georgia Star News has contacted several counties in the state, and DeKalb is the only county so far to respond that it does not know if it has ballot transfer forms.
Cook County, for instance, provided copies of all the ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election within 24 hours.
Late Friday afternoon Cobb County provided copies of 400 ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election.
The Georgia Star News received responses from election officials in both Cobb County and Cook County.
In contrast, the DeKalb County response instead came from an Assistant County Attorney.
It strains credulity to suggest that the election director of DeKalb County cannot say whether or not the legally required ballot transfer forms exist in 30 seconds, not the 30 days the county says it needs to be able to answer that question.
As previously reported by The Georgia Star News:
DeKalb County received $4.8 million from the nonprofit in which Zuckerberg donated to.
The county published information on their grant:
Unofficially, the 2020 election votes cast in DeKalb County have Donald Trump with 58,373 votes and Biden with 308,227 votes.
You can read the letter from DeKalb County to The Georgia Star News here:
– – –
Tiffany Morgan is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Email tips to tiffbamorgan@gmail.com
DeKalb County Cannot Find Chain of Custody Records for Absentee Ballots Deposited in Drop Boxes: ‘It Has Not Been Determined If Responsive Records to Your Request Exist’
December 5, 2020 Tiffany Morgan
DeKalb County responded to an Open Records Request from The Georgia Star News to produce the ballot transfer forms that formed the critical chain of custody link in the absentee ballots deposited in the near 300 drop boxes in the state and transported to county election offices in a letter received on Friday that said the county did not know if such records exist.
Earlier this week, the Secretary of States’ office told Breitbart News that it did not know how many of the 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election were delivered by mail vs. drop box, but the counties should know.
The Georgia Star News filed an open records request on Tuesday for all “ballot transfer forms” from the Nov. 3 General Election in DeKalb County. But there is no way to determine the chain of custody.
The open records request reply, received from Assistant County Attorney at DeKalb County Dexter Q. Bond, Jr., stated, “it has not yet been determined if responsive records to your request exist.”
The ballot transfer forms that remain unknown in DeKalb are a part of Georgia’s new Election Code implemented this past summer.
The DeKalb County response was unusual in several ways.
The Georgia Star News has contacted several counties in the state, and DeKalb is the only county so far to respond that it does not know if it has ballot transfer forms.
Cook County, for instance, provided copies of all the ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election within 24 hours.
Late Friday afternoon Cobb County provided copies of 400 ballot transfer forms used in the 2020 general election.
The Georgia Star News received responses from election officials in both Cobb County and Cook County.
In contrast, the DeKalb County response instead came from an Assistant County Attorney.
It strains credulity to suggest that the election director of DeKalb County cannot say whether or not the legally required ballot transfer forms exist in 30 seconds, not the 30 days the county says it needs to be able to answer that question.
As previously reported by The Georgia Star News:
Chief Executive Officer of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg made a donation to the 2020 election efforts, which include a donation to the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
DeKalb County received $4.8 million from the nonprofit in which Zuckerberg donated to.
The county published information on their grant:
The 2016 election results in DeKalb County, Hillary Clinton received 239,131 votes, Donald Trump received 47,531 and other candidates received 9,209 for a total of 295,871 votes cast.
Unofficially, the 2020 election votes cast in DeKalb County have Donald Trump with 58,373 votes and Biden with 308,227 votes.
You can read the letter from DeKalb County to The Georgia Star News here:
– – –
Tiffany Morgan is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Email tips to tiffbamorgan@gmail.com
somewherepress
Has No Life - Lives on TB
JUST IN - Supreme Court moves up deadline for briefing in #Pennsylvania case, bringing it within 'Safe Harbor' window to potentially intervene on mail-in ballot system adopted by the state legislature before the election.
View: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1335647706929377282
View: https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1335647706929377282