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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here's What Happens : Propublica
https://www.propublica.org/article/if-trump-tries-to-sue-his-way-to-election-victory-heres-what-happensA hearing on Wednesday in an election case captured in miniature the challenge for the Trump campaign as it gears up for what could become an all-out legal assault on presidential election results in key swing states: Its easy enough to file a lawsuit claiming improprieties in this case, that Pennsylvania had violated the law by allowing voters whose mail-in ballots were defective to correct them but a lot harder to provide evidence of wrongdoing or a convincing legal argument. I dont understand how the integrity of the election was affected, said U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage, something he repeated several times during the hearing. (However the judge rules, the case is unlikely to have a significant effect; only 93 ballots are at issue, a county election official said.)
A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Levitt said judges by and large have ignored the noise of the race and the bluster of President Donald Trumps Twitter feed. Theyve actually demanded facts and havent been ruling on all-caps claims of fraud or suppression, Levitt said. They havent confused public relations with the predicate for litigation, and I would expect that to continue.
If Levitt is right, that may augur poorly for the legal challenges to the presidential election. Either way, the number of cases is starting to rapidly increase. But lawsuits will do little good unless, as in the 2000 presidential election, the race winds up being so close that it comes down to a very thin margin of votes in one or more must-win states.
One of the few certainties is that we will not see the instant Bush v. Gore replay that Trump seems to have in mind. A few hours after voting ended, in a 2 a.m. speech that drew bipartisan condemnation for the presidents premature declaration that he had won the election, Trump baselessly described the ongoing ballot count as a fraud on the American public. Well be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, he told his supporters. We want all voting to stop. Trump is famously litigious, but hes not a lawyer, and he seemed not to understand that apart from a small class of cases (largely territorial disputes between states), lawsuits dont originate at the Supreme Court. The Trump campaign would have to file suit in a state or federal court and eventually appeal an adverse decision to the high court. Along the way, as the Pennsylvania court anecdote suggests, the Trump campaign would need to show evidence to back up his claim, and so far theres no evidence of fraud in the ongoing ballot counts, which often run beyond election night. Tallying legitimate votes is not, despite the presidents tweeted claims, a form of fraud.
A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Levitt said judges by and large have ignored the noise of the race and the bluster of President Donald Trumps Twitter feed. Theyve actually demanded facts and havent been ruling on all-caps claims of fraud or suppression, Levitt said. They havent confused public relations with the predicate for litigation, and I would expect that to continue.
If Levitt is right, that may augur poorly for the legal challenges to the presidential election. Either way, the number of cases is starting to rapidly increase. But lawsuits will do little good unless, as in the 2000 presidential election, the race winds up being so close that it comes down to a very thin margin of votes in one or more must-win states.
One of the few certainties is that we will not see the instant Bush v. Gore replay that Trump seems to have in mind. A few hours after voting ended, in a 2 a.m. speech that drew bipartisan condemnation for the presidents premature declaration that he had won the election, Trump baselessly described the ongoing ballot count as a fraud on the American public. Well be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, he told his supporters. We want all voting to stop. Trump is famously litigious, but hes not a lawyer, and he seemed not to understand that apart from a small class of cases (largely territorial disputes between states), lawsuits dont originate at the Supreme Court. The Trump campaign would have to file suit in a state or federal court and eventually appeal an adverse decision to the high court. Along the way, as the Pennsylvania court anecdote suggests, the Trump campaign would need to show evidence to back up his claim, and so far theres no evidence of fraud in the ongoing ballot counts, which often run beyond election night. Tallying legitimate votes is not, despite the presidents tweeted claims, a form of fraud.
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If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here's What Happens : Propublica (Original Post)
erronis
Nov 2020
OP
soothsayer
(38,601 posts)1. "A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet w
A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Ha!
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)2. K&R!
dalton99a
(81,426 posts)3. Kick
Mike 03
(16,616 posts)4. I LOVE this line:
A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee,