StarfishSaver
StarfishSaver's JournalBREAKING: Third Circuit upholds lower court's dismissal of Trump/Giuliani suit in Pennsylvania
And does so with no mercy ...
Oh - And the judge writing this scathing opinion was appointed by ... Wait for it ... Trump
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1332376449207201792
Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections. The ballots here are governed by Pennsylvania election law. No federal law requires poll watchers or specifies where they must live or how close they may stand when votes are counted. Nor does federal law govern whether to count ballots with minor state-law defects or let voters cure those defects. Those are all issues of state law, not ones that we can hear. And
earlier lawsuits have rejected those claims.
Seeking to turn those state-law claims into federal ones, the Campaign claims discrimination. But its alchemy cannot transmute lead into gold. The Campaign never alleges that any ballot was fraudulent or cast by an illegal voter. It never alleges that any defendant treated the Trump campaign or its votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or its votes. Calling something discrimination does not make it so. The Second Amended Complaint still suffers from these core defects, so granting leave to amend would have been futile.
And there is no basis to grant the unprecedented injunction sought here. First, for the reasons already given, the Campaign is unlikely to succeed on the merits. Second, it shows no irreparable
harm, offering specific challenges to many fewer ballots than the roughly 81,000-vote margin of victory. Third, the Campaign is responsible for its delay and repetitive litigation. Finally, the public interest strongly favors finality, counting every lawful voter’s vote, and not disenfranchising millions of Pennsylvania voters who voted by mail. Plus, discarding those votes could disrupt every other election on the ballot.
We will thus affirm the District Court’s denial of leave to amend, and we deny an injunction pending appeal. The Campaign asked for a very fast briefing schedule, and we have granted its request.
Because the Campaign wants us to move as fast as possible, we also deny oral argument. We grant all motions to file overlength responses, to file amicus briefs, and to supplement appendices. We deny all other outstanding motions as moot. This Court’s mandate shall issue at once.
Add the Michigan certification vote to the list of Trump epic fails
Trump pulled out all the stops, using all the powers of his office, including leaning all over the Michigan legislature and he got his ass handed to him - with a huge assist by his own team who refused to go along.
Interesting that the state legislators, whom many thought would steal the election for Trump, have shown more courage and commitment to democracy than US senators and members of Congress
GOP Board of Canvassers member just announced he would vote to certify Michigan results
It's essentially over.
Aaron Van Langenvelde
GOP vice chair of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, so far, isn't having it that there is any basis for not certifying the election results.
Unless be does a complete 180 at some later point in this hearing, these results will be certified.
I hope someone is preparing a nice cushy place for him under the GOP bus.
Carl Bernstein outs 21 GOP senators who "disdain" Trump in private but remain publicly silent
https://twitter.com/carlbernstein/status/1330710307052814336Why I don't think the Supreme Court will take up the Pennsylvania case
1. The Court takes very few cases that are appealed to it. They are NOT going to waste their time on this nothingburger.
2. Jurisdiction would have to be based on there being a constitutional question that needs to be resolved. As the trial court made clear, the plaintiffs failed to properly allege and definitely didn't present anything close to sufficient evidence that the defendant violated the Constitutional rights of the Trump campaign or the two voters who brought the suit.
3. Even if they wanted to find a Constitutional violation, that would create a very dangerous precedent that the Court would NOT want.
The plaintiffs are claiming their rights were violated because the counties where they voted didn't go out of their way to facilitate their ability to vote by notifying them if an opportunity to cure their faulty ballots while other counties did do that for their voters and that this warrants the votes of ALL other voters be thrown out.
If the Court were to find that that inconsistency was a violation of equal protection and/or due process, that would open the floodgates for minority and low-income voters to demand similar response to other inconsistencies in voting systems.
Fewer machines and longer lines in Philly than in the suburbs? FIX IT OR THROW OUT EVERYONE'S VOTE!
Different early voting hours in different counties in Florida? CHANGE IT OR THROW OUT EVERYONE'S VOTE!
The Court is NOT going there.
Funniest tweet of my morning ...
https://twitter.com/DoYouEvenLif/status/1330309626202624004Federal judge throws Trump campaign (and Giuliani) out of court and it's a doozy
If Webster ever decides to include a definition of ass-whuppin' in it's dictionary, it should just cut and paste from this opinion ...
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.pamd.127057/gov.uscourts.pamd.127057.202.0_1.pdf
Two critically important takeaways from the last two election cycles
1. The importance of mid-terms. Democrats taking back the U.S. House of Representatives and the governorships and secretary of state offices in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia and Nevada in 2017 and 2018 was monumental for 2020.
2. Voting DOES make a difference and margins matter Turning out the base and fighting voter suppression at every turn - through massive public education and engagement, and strategic litigation - ensured a victory too large for Trump to steal.
This isn't going to happen, BUT IF Michigan doesn't certify its results ...
and doesn't send electors to the Electoral College, that reduces the number of electors from 538 to 522 (Michigan has 16 electors).
That means Biden would need 262 not 270 electoral votes to win - the Constitution requires a candidate to win a majority of the electors voting, not potential electors.
With Michigan, Biden has 306 votes. Without Michigan, he'd have 290 votes.
He'd still win handily.
The only way Trump would have any chance is if the votes somehow flipped to him - which isn't going to happen, either. But even if it did, he'd still only have 248 votes to Biden's 290. Biden still wins.
As I said, that's not going to happen - Michigan will certify its election results and send its 16 electors to vote for Biden. But even if it didn't, Biden will still win, no matter what..
So, everybody, please just calm down.
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Member since: Mon Apr 22, 2019, 03:26 PMNumber of posts: 18,486
