Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) Statement on Court Ruling in Trump v. Boockvar Is Worth Reading

The Pennsylvania Senator offered an appropriate response to the Trump campaign's failed election litigation

Over the weekend, a federal district court judge through out the Trump campaign's effort to challenge the Pennsylvania election results in Donald J. Trump for President v. Boockvar. The strongly worded opinion by Judge Matthew Brann excoriates the Trump campaign's legal team, their arguments, and their tactics.

In response to the ruling, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) issued a statement that is worth quoting in full, as it provides a model for how other elected Republicans should be handling the Trump campaign's legal maneuvers.

With today's decision by Judge Matthew Brann, a longtime conservative Republican whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist, to dismiss the Trump campaign's lawsuit, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the result of the presidential race in Pennsylvania.

This ruling follows a series of procedural losses for President Trump's campaign. On Friday, the state of Georgia certified the victory of Joe Biden after a hand recount of paper ballots confirmed the conclusion of the initial electronic count. Michigan lawmakers rejected the apparent attempt by President Trump to thwart the will of Michigan voters and select an illegitimate slate of electoral college electors. These developments, together with the outcomes in the rest of the nation, confirm that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and will become the 46th President of the United States.

I congratulate President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their victory. They are both dedicated public servants and I will be praying for them and for our country. Unsurprisingly, I have significant policy disagreements with the President-elect. However, as I have done throughout my career, I will seek to work across the aisle with him and his administration, especially on those areas where we may agree, such as continuing our efforts to combat COVID-19, breaking down barriers to expanding trade, supporting the men and women of our armed forces, and keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals and the dangerously mentally ill.

Make no mistake about it, I am deeply disappointed that President Trump and Vice President Pence were not re-elected. I endorsed the president and voted for him. During his four years in office, his administration achieved much for the American people. The tax relief and regulatory overhauls that President Trump enacted with Republicans in Congress produced the strongest economy of my adult life. He also should be applauded for forging historic peace agreements in the Middle East, facilitating the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, appointing three outstanding Supreme Court justices, and keeping America safe by neutralizing ISIS and killing terrorists like Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

To ensure that he is remembered for these outstanding accomplishments, and to help unify our country, President Trump should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process.

Indulging the President's continued efforts to delegitimize the election through frivolous litigation and conspiracy mongering is not patriotic. It is quite the opposite. Elections have consequences, and in this election the Republican presidential candidate lost. Republicans and others who supported Trump need to acknowledge this fact and move on, as Senator Toomey has.

Alas, there is reason to believe the shenanigans will continue. The Trump campaign filed a notice of appeal in the Pennsylvania litigation with the U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday, but did not ask the court to delay certification of the Pennsylvania results. Other suits remain pending in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and some Republican office holders are still seeking to prevent the certification of results in other states. None of this will overturn President-elect Biden's victory. It will, however, continue to exacerbate tribal partisan divisions and undermine confidence in our institutions.

It is long past time for more Republicans to put country over party Trump.

UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is hearing the Trump campaign's appeal on an expedited basis.

Comments

[Martinned]

the strongest economy of my adult life

Wait, what???

[Martinned]

He also should be applauded for forging historic peace agreements in the Middle East, facilitating the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, appointing three outstanding Supreme Court justices, and keeping America safe by neutralizing ISIS and killing terrorists like Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Nvm, the rest of that paragraph is complete fiction too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Really?

I see that we actually do have peace agreements between Israel and Bahrain, Sudan and the UAE. That's somewhat historic.

The Moderna vaccine was produced in record time, and, yes, they did get help from Operation Warp Speed clearing regulatory obstacles.

You're free to have your own opinion of Trump's Supreme court nominations, though you should at least admit there were three.

And, are Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi still alive?

[Martinned]

peace agreements between Israel and Bahrain, Sudan and the UAE

Those countries were not at war in the first place.

they did get help from Operation Warp Speed clearing regulatory obstacles

That's not the same as help with "development".

you should at least admit there were three.

True, point withdrawn.

are Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi still alive?

The former wasn't a terrorist but an Iranian general, and the latter wasn't killed by the US but blew himself up.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Those countries were not at war in the first place."

They were not actively at war, which is not the same thing as being at peace.

"That’s not the same as help with “development”."

It certainly is, unless maybe you think they can proceed with trials without regulatory clearance.

"The former wasn’t a terrorist but an Iranian general"

Hardly mutually exclusive jobs.

"and the latter wasn’t killed by the US but blew himself up."

To avoid imminent capture, which is close enough.

[Martinned]

To skip over the rest, since that has nothing to do with the law:

They were not actively at war, which is not the same thing as being at peace.

The UEA and Bahrain didn't even exist as a country for all but the last shooting wars between Israel and the Arab countries (i.e. the Yom Kuppur war). And none of the three of them were belligerents in that war, nor indeed in any previous Israel-Arab war.

So no, they may not have had friendly relations, but Israel has never been at war with either Sudan, Bahrain, or the UAE.

[Social Justice is neither]

That is kind of like saying the USA and the USSR were never at war so no relationship normalization between the two was ever a big deal.

[Krayt]

they did get help from Operation Warp Speed clearing regulatory obstacles

That’s not the same as help with “development”.

Fair enough. However, which party derives joy and power from slowing down medical development through hurdles, at the cost of many more lives than would be lost being a little too fast? And has to be shamed to go faster, as with AIDS?

Which party runs on thd unconscionable evils of big pharma?

[jb]

"However, which party derives joy and power from slowing down medical development through hurdles, at the cost of many more lives than would be lost being a little too fast?"

Uhh, neither. That's some sort of weird caricature of either party's policy with no relationship to reality.

"And has to be shamed to go faster, as with AIDS?"

Oooh, oooh, I know the answer to this one--the AIDS thing was a helpful hint! It's the Republicans! From https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/the-heroic-story-of-how-congress-first-confronted-aids/240131/ :

"Some Republicans in Congress and in the Reagan administration cast AIDS as a "gay disease." One Republican, Rep. Bill Dannemeyer of California, delivered a speech on the House floor titled "What Homosexuals Do" and read graphic descriptions of sexual acts into the Congressional Record. He also pushed to create a government register of AIDS patients, quarantines, and deportation, the fear of which made it more difficult for public health researchers to get access to gay men. Dannemeyer was powerful. Just as a single senator can place a hold on a nomination or stop legislation from moving forward, Dannemeyer prevented other Republicans inclined to help from doing so."

"Which party runs on thd unconscionable evils of big pharma?"

Ooh, I know this one too! It's whatever party Donald Trump is in! I can't post more links, but just do a web search for something like "Trump twitter pharma" and you can what he's been up to.

[bernard11]

We do have agreements. That Trump, or Kushner, "forged" them is open to question.

I mean, OK. They didn't get in the way and may have helped a bit by facilitating communications and so on, but Israel and these states, plus Saudi Arabia, have had a lot of common interests and semi-official cooperation for some time.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a general rule that you can't get formal peace agreements until they're almost redundant. But they DID happen.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Trump’s base doesn’t care about peace in the Middle East. Trump’s base voted for him because he promised to stop illegal immigration and bring back good manufacturing jobs...and on both accounts Trump failed to deliver. They also voted for him to end the stupid Bush wars but in 2016 those were mostly over and Trump obviously didn’t start any new dumb wars.

[bernard11]

Yes. And as I said, Trump mostly stayed out of the way and offered an occasional cheer. Nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend it's on a scale with the Camp David Accords.

Meanwhile, Trump's policy towards Iran has probably done more harm than these agreements have done good.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose that depends on whether you think Obama's Iran deal was actually working, or just cosmetic.

[Bob from Ohio]

The deal is still in place with Europe but I keep reading how Iran is closer than ever to nukes. Strange.

[grb]

Bob from Ohio : The deal is still in place with Europe but I keep reading how Iran is closer than ever to nukes. Strange.

(1) Not strange if you bother to learn the facts, which you never do.

(2) Trump's sabotage of the pact made Europe following it almost meaningless. Because of the U.S. central role in world trade and its power of sanctions, Iran lost almost all of the benefits it received from obeying the deal after Trump's actions. European efforts to keep the deal working were ineffectual :

"Words were not enough. Europeans have been unable to safeguard their oil imports from Iran and prevent it from being disconnected from international financial markets. The E3’s “special purpose vehicle” to facilitate trade in humanitarian goods, called Instex, has yet to become operational. Nor has Iran received much help from China or Russia"

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-can-still-save-the-iran-nuclear-deal-sibiu-summit/

(3) So with the deal voided in all but name by Trump, Iran began to slowly increase uranium enrichment beyond the limits of the dead treaty. Over the past year they have exceeded the uranium production limits of the 2015 accord twelvefold.

(4) These are limits they followed before Trump withdrew from the pact. How do we know this? Because Trump's own White House certified Iran was in full compliance multiple times before Trump pulled out a fully functioning deal. Because the White House talking points when doing so were issues other than Iran's nuclear program under the treaty : Their missile development, their actions in the region, their conventional forces.

(5) When Obama was president, Iran's nuclear program was an "existential threat". Now it's almost an afterthought. Trump voided a treaty that shut Iran's atomic weapons program down. He destroyed the world-wide coalition against Iran. Nothing was accomplished in return, except to accelerate the country's development of atomic weapons. He had no plan. He had no strategy. He had no objectives.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : The Moderna vaccine was produced in record time, and, yes, they did get help from Operation Warp Speed clearing regulatory obstacles.

I think Trump should get credit for the vaccine. It happened on his watch and wasn't the cluster***k that was the rest of his coronavirus response. But can't we can stay within the factual boundaries for once? Kevin Drum today, with a timeline :

January 10 : China releases genome of virus.

January 11 : Scientists around the world immediately begin work on a vaccine.

January 14 : Moderna begins development of its mRNA-based vaccine.

January 23 : The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations provides $12.5 million in seed money to three companies, including Moderna.

January 26 : BioNTech begins work on its mRNA-based vaccine.

February 15 : More than two dozen companies have announced that they are working on a COVID-19 vaccine.

March 26 : Congress passes the CARES Act, which allots $9.5 billion for vaccine development. It is passed almost unanimously. President Trump signs it into law the next day.

April 16 : HHS announces $483 million in funding for the Moderna vaccine.

April 29 : Operation Warp Speed is revealed in the press.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, and what I said was that Operation Warp Speed cleared the regulatory hurdles, which would normally have had this taking several years.

The FDA might not create vaccines, but they can obstruct their creation like nobody's business, and it is to Trump's credit that he managed to keep them from doing so. Because they DID try to.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Because they DID try to"

No they didn't. But you're welcome to provide a citation saving otherwise if you can find something marginally absurd, as opposed to comically laughable.

[Brett Bellmore]

See, for instance: White House Blocks New Coronavirus Vaccine Guidelines

It being the NYT, they had to attribute bad motives to the action, but the FDA WAS trying to slow things down, and Trump stopped them. It's not the first time that happened; The FDA keeps trying to revert to a normal, non-emergency schedule.

[Kazinski]

From CNBC Oct 4 2019:
The jobless rate for Hispanics hit a record low of 3.9% in September, while African Americans maintained its lowest rate ever, 5.5%.
The unemployment rate for Asian Americans was 2.5% in September. The jobless rate for adult women came in at 3.1%.

It certainly was and still mostly is (6.9% currently in the middle of lockdowns) the best economy of my lifetime, and I'm 65.

The EU's 2019 unemployment was much higher (recession levels here) at 7.4, because you don't follow American policies generally or Trump's specially, so it doesn't surprise me you aren't aware how good the economy was for Trump's presidency, at least until covid came along.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Record deficit spending can really light an economy on fire, just like Keynes asserted long ago.

Why are "conservatives" cheering on Keynesian deficit spending?

[grb]

Can't the cult get a grip for once ?!? Economic growth during the last three years of Obama's presidency was 2.4%. Economic growth in the first three years of Trump was 2.5%. As De Oppresso Liber points out, that extra 1% was bought with a tsunami of deficit spending, such that we were running trillion dollar deficits during a full-bore economic expansion.

In contrast, Obama's economic growth was accomplished by reduced deficits, year by year, throughout the eight years of his presidency.

[DaivdBehar]

The lowest and next to lowest 10thile of wage earner got raises of 10% and 9%. That was the reason for the tech billionaire jihad against Trump. Wage pressure from a labor shortage threatened their profits. Trump had to go, and they succeeded.

I have proposed their assets get seized in civil forfeiture for the billions of federal crimes on their platforms and the millions they committed themselves. They overestimated viewerships, defrauding their advertisers.

[bernard11]

Annual real growth was 2.5% during Trump's first three years in office.

It was close to 4% during Clinton's eight years.

Seems like that was during your lifetime.

[David Nieporent]

From CNBC Oct 4 2019:
The jobless rate for Hispanics hit a record low of 3.9% in September, while African Americans maintained its lowest rate ever, 5.5%.

Remember that famous question Reagan asked: "Were you better off a year before my presidency ended than you were four years ago?"

[jb]

The Trump economy was pretty good. Best in Toomey's adult life is wrong--productivity growth was way too low for that to be true--but, importantly, it's the first time in a long time that we started to see real wage growth instead of just a few rich people getting richer. Now, I don't think Trump was very instrumental to this since it's basically just a continuation of the trends from the Obama administration. He does deserve credit for bullying the Fed into not treating 5% as full employment and putting the breaks on growth, which is the only reason we got to the point the labor market was constrained enough to start driving wages up. Of course, he also put us trillions of dollars in debt on tax cuts for those aforementioned rich people and made stuff more expensive with his tariffs, so... let's call it a B-.

Operation Warp Speed actually seems pretty good, although that doesn't excuse the fact that doing dumb shit like politicizing mask wearing is going to have made both the pandemic and the economy a lot worse in the meantime. Probably gets an F on the overall handling of he crisis.

Foreign affairs is kind of similar. Normalizing relationships between Israel and various Arab countries is good. Destabilizing most of our other relationships is bad. Letting Iran build up their enriched uranium stockpiles is bad. Jury is still out on China, but Trump is probably right that the overall state of the relationship was much worse for the US than for China. Hard to assign a letter grade since it's unclear how a lot of this stuff will play out long-term. Call it an I for now?

[grb]

Pretty fair summary, tho I could quibble over your grading:

1. On the economy, Trump bought a continuation of Obama's growth rates with massive amounts of debt. B- seems generous.

2. On foreign affairs, you're one of the few people who notice the sole result of Trump's Iranian policy was accelerating that country's nuclear program. Before he junked the treaty, his own White House certified (multiple times) that Iran was obeying it to the letter. Trump crippled the world-wide coalition against Iran and accomplished nothing in return. Over the past year Iran has exceeded the enriched uranium production limits of the 2015 accord twelvefold - limits they followed before Trump destroyed the treaty.

3. I would give Trump more credit for seeing China as the major long-term threat against the U.S. if (a) the observation wasn't a commonplace, (b) Trump's actions on China weren't all empty bluster & huckster theatrics, (c) domestic politics wasn't his sole motivation.

[David Nieporent]

I think you mean if (b) Trump's actions weren't almost exactly the opposite of what one would do if one thought China was a threat. The U.S. pulling out of TPP — which Trump apparently mistakenly thought China was a part of — strengthened China.

[Brett Bellmore]

I thought the legal avenue was pretty much doomed once the Supreme court refused the pre-election cases challenging election law violations. That refusal assured that the only plausible remedy would be decertifying elections in whole states, something the judiciary would do under only the most outrageous circumstances. And there was enough opacity engineered into the system to make sure you couldn't prove to a judge that the circumstances were outrageous.

Still, that didn't mean that Trump wasn't entitled to exhaust his legal options, or that some good wouldn't have come of exposing exactly what has been going on with the Supreme court's tacit approval. Or it would expose Trump's complaints as meritless.

Denying a hearing on the merits, of course, makes sure that the exposure won't meaningfully take place, in either direction. It just leaves the whole question unsettled.

[Martinned]

Speaking of denying a hearing on the merits, have you worked out yet which standard of review should apply?

[Poor Yorick]

The normal one.

[bernard11]

Your answer lacks opacity.

[apedad]

"And there was enough opacity engineered into the system to make sure you couldn’t prove to a judge that the circumstances were outrageous."

Wouldn't outrageous incidents be rather apparent - being outrageous and all.

Like EVERY freaking election there's going to irregularities, mistakes, and YES fraud and illegal activity, and this election was no different.

But there's ABSOLUTELY no evidence or info that would even come close to having the overall results overturned.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Still, that didn’t mean that Trump wasn’t entitled to exhaust his legal options

Who is suggesting that Trump isn't so entitled?

His problem is that he pretty much has exhausted his legal options, and it turns out that he didn't have a case.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, not a case that any judge wanted to get to a hearing on the merits on, anyway.

[bernard11]

Don't worry, Brett. Sidney Powell is on the case.

She's going to prove, any day now, that Brann is on the Venezuelan payroll, just like Kemp.

[MoreCurious]

Apparently Sidney has a direct line of communication to Hugo Chavez.

[De Oppresso Liber]

"Sidney Powell is just practicing law on her own. We don't even know her." --Trump Campaign as of this morning.

You can't make this up.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump, his lawyers, and the dullards who support Trump have been making it up profusely.

Thank goodness their betters are the winners in America.

[MollyGodiva]

If the litigants lack standing, and the legal theory is trash, then there is no "merits" to hold a hearing on.

[Sarcastr0]

Any judge!

The conspiracy runs deep.

Also through IGs and Republican SecStates and all sorts of people.

Literally everyone is against Trump not because he's got nothing, but because he's such a rebel underdog.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'm not following your complaint. Can you help me understand by offering an example of a specific case and explain how Judge Bellmore would have done things differently?

It seems to me that if Trump can't frame a complaint that can survive a motion to dismiss, that's on him.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I read it, or rather skim it, (I've been rather busy caving and doing yard work this weekend.) the judge didn't just weigh Trump's proposed case. He weighed it against the remedy. And concluded that there was no point in proceeding because he wasn't ordering the remedy, no way, no how.

The remedy isn't insane, if you'd had proof in a local or state election that enough illegal ballots had been counted and intermingled to have altered the outcome of the election, you'd be able to get the count decertified. The judge just wasn't willing to go there in a Presidential election.

I see THAT as being on the judge.

But I'm not shocked. I figured it was all over but the shouting when the Supreme court refused to take those pre-election challenges. The judiciary do not mean to pull Trump's fat out of the fire, and if that means they have to turn a blind eye to some serious election irregularities, so be it.

[De Oppresso Liber]

I guess you missed the part in all of these cases where the Trump campaign has been urged to enter some evidence of fraud into evidence, they fail to do so, and then proceed to remove fraud from their complaints instead. Or when they enter affidavits into evidence that the Trump lawyers themselves have determined were fraudulent, proceed to admit that they are fraudulent to the judge, and then ask to get their own evidence tossed.

Keep on believin', though.

[SykesFive]

Brett, the evidence of irregularity that the Trump campaign presented was basically this:

The Pennsylvania secretary of state said that county election boards could alert mail-in/absentee voters that ballots could be cured. Now maybe this was legal and maybe it wasn't, but she provided this guidance to all county election boards. Some county election boards started implementing her guidance. On the other hand, some didn't.

That's it! That was the widespread irregularity! Some counties followed the secretary of state's advice about making things easier for voters and some didn't.

So then the losing candidate and some voters whose county boards of elections didn't make things easier for them claimed there was an equal protection violation, and as a remedy they asked for the whole election to be tossed.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, no, that was sort of the cherry on top of the pie. It starts with the state supreme court ordering election laws violated. And then got serious with the decision that observers weren't allowed to observe at satellite voting sites where early voting was going on, and later with Philly not permitting observers to be close enough to actually observe anything, again endorsed by the state supreme court.

The equal protection argument is kind of a hail Mary pass after the courts shot down the bigger complaints.

[SykesFive]

Those issues you mention weren't before Judge Brann. Some of them had been, but the "Trump legal team" narrowed its amended complaint to the big equal protection claim.

Please keep in mind there is no such thing as early voting under Pennsylvania law. There is obtaining a mail-in/absentee ballot and returning that ballot, which can be done in person or through the mail. If you are willing to wait around, you can complete the entire process in a single transaction, but it's not all that similar to true "early voting." There is no right to watch people do any of those steps nor is their any particular prohibition: the law is simply silent on spending the day hanging around a county election office. A federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled on this issue, by the way.

[Brett Bellmore]

"There is no right to watch people do any of those steps nor is their any particular prohibition."

I agree. This is the sort of ad hoc, making up things as you go along, that cause me to call this the dumpster fire election.

Key point here: Maybe there's nothing in the law that specifically says the observers are entitled to watch this process, as they would if somebody were voting in person on election day. Maybe there's nothing in the law that says you have to let the observers on election day, and during the subsequent counting, actually be close enough to see what's going on.

But why the hell wouldn't you let them watch ANYWAY?

The obvious answer, and you don't have to be clinically paranoid to arrive at it, is: Because you're doing something that doesn't bear watching.

They went out of their way to make sure nobody on the losing side would trust the outcome, and then complain that the losing side doesn't trust the outcome?

[SykesFive]

No, Brett, the obvious answer is that county election offices weren't designed for much "counter service" in the first place, and having large numbers of people coming in person to request an absentee ballot was never part of the plan. Add COVID restrictions and nobody is really clear what to do about the guy who says he's just going to make sure nothing funny's going on. The statutes on observing voting and canvassing don't apply so we're down to the unwritten principles governing whether or not a person can just hang out in a government office all day.

So it's not obvious the idea here was to hide malfeasance.

Same issue for observing the canvassing/counting, particularly when you have people insisting on getting very close and making it clear they don't take COVID rules seriously.

And who went out of the way to make sure the losing side wouldn't trust the outcome? Maybe the candidate telling people not to vote by mail should reap a little of what he sowed.

It was a very weird election for snowballing reasons that resulted in a pronounced partisan split by voting method.

[David Nieporent]

It starts with the state supreme court ordering election laws violated.

False, false, and false again. You've been told repeatedly that you don't understand law. Why don't you try leaving the discussion to people who do?

[MollyGodiva]

You did not read the case well enough. It was thrown out for many reasons, and the remedy was not one of them. He said that in order for him to order the remedy, the arguments and evidence would have to be very strong, and he wrote that instead they were very weak.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's what I was saying: He balanced the remedy against the arguments, and since the only available remedy was extreme, he wasn't going to bother proceeding without extreme evidence.

I've said this before: You could show the bank vault had been left open, you could show the alarm had been shut off, you could show that the guard had been sent home, and you could show the account books had some rather unlikely numbers.

What you couldn't show was proof the bank had been robbed during all of that, and THAT is what the judge wanted to see. Not proof that it was possible that the election had been stolen, but proof that it HAD been stolen.

This would not have been required for a local election.

[MollyGodiva]

No, my point is that he did look at the legal arguments and standing, and found them both lacking. He also noted that the remedy was extreme. He did quite a good job tearing apart their arguments and standing. They would have lost no matter what remedy they were after.

[Noscitur a sociis]

What you couldn’t show was proof the bank had been robbed during all of that, and THAT is what the judge wanted to see. Not proof that it was possible that the election had been stolen, but proof that it HAD been stolen.

Yes, as a matter of basic civil procedure it's not enough to plead that your allegations are possible: you need to allege that what could have happened actually did happen. (And for what it's worth, Trump's only actual claim on this point was that two people's votes were improperly rejected.)

This would not have been required for a local election.

Election law is hardly my specialty, but this seems extremely unlikely to be true. Can you point to an example of a local election that was invalidated on a complaint comparable to Trump's?

[Brett Bellmore]

For instance: New election ordered in NJ race marred by voter fraud charges

Just to establish that this remedy IS used in local elections. I can give you other examples.

It does not generally demand proof that the fraud or illegality actually changed the outcome. Just that it was of large enough scale to have been capable of doing so.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I don't like relying on news articles instead of primary documents for legal issues, but come on: are you really suggesting that this case, where "the race’s apparent winner and a sitting councilman were charged with voter fraud" and "the U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm told the state attorney general’s office about hundreds of mail-in ballots located in a mailbox in Paterson, along with more found in nearby Haledon" is remotely comparable to what the Trump campaign offered up here?

[Brett Bellmore]

Judge orders new election in Iron County Sheriff race

Note that all that was requires was "irregularities", not proof of massive fraud.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The court further found that, beyond substantial irregularities, the Aug. 4 primary election was “fraught with multiple errors and violations of the Missouri election laws.”

Also note that these are state court judges, who may well have decided these cases on the basis of state law. (We can't tell because the articles inexplicably and indefensibly fail to link to the actual rulings.) The Trump campaign exclusively brought federal constitutional claims.

[Brett Bellmore]

And Pennsylvania was fraught with multiple violations of Pennsylvania law. They just happened to have been ordered by the PA supreme court.

The point here is that they never require you to prove that fraud/illegality/irregularities actually changed the outcome of the race. Only that it was on a scale large enough that it could have changed the outcome of the race.

They're holding Trump to a stricter standard than is used in the local races.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, as a matter of basic civil procedure it’s not enough to plead that your allegations are possible: you need to allege that what could have happened actually did happen. (And for what it’s worth, Trump’s only actual claim on this point was that two people’s votes were improperly rejected.)

Yeah, but not really. Because if that were the claim, the remedy would be to sue those officials who improperly rejected the ballots, to get those votes to be counted. What they did was sue different officials who didn't reject ballots to say that thousands should've been tossed out also.

[not guilty]

In order to establish standing to sue, a plaintiff must show, among other things, that a ruling in his favor will redress the wrongs complained of by the particular defendants sued. The requested remedy is part and parcel of standing analysis.

[bernard11]

I think you need to read the decision again.

Two guys claimed that they should have been allowed to cure their defective ballots. Leaving aside all the significant procedural issues - the were suing the wrong defendant, among other things - their proposed remedy - throw out millions of votes - is an absurdity which, as the judge points out, does not even address the problem. It doesn't restore the plaintiffs' votes. It just throws out others. "We didn't get to vote, so no one else should, either."

Prohibiting certification of the election results would not reinstate the Individual Plaintiffs’ right to vote. It would simply deny more than 6.8 million people their right to vote. ...

When remedying an equal-protection violation, a court may either “level up” or “level down.”....Here, leveling up to address the alleged cancellation of Plaintiffs’ votes would be easy; the simple answer is that their votes would be counted. But Plaintiffs do not ask to level up. Rather, they seek to level down, and in doing so, they ask the Court to violate the rights of over 6.8 million Americans. It is not in the power of this Court to violate the Constitution.

The Trump campaign claimed that the treatment of observers violated Equal Protection. But Biden and Trump observers were treated the same. The Trump campaign did not even allege otherwise.

[SykesFive]

When I reached "level up" I was thinking the judge might be a gamer!

[bernard11]

if you’d had proof in a local or state election that enough illegal ballots had been counted and intermingled to have altered the outcome of the election, you’d be able to get the count decertified.

Are you talking about PA?

Because the plaintiffs didn't make any claim like that. It was all about curing defective mail-in ballots.

And yeah, the judge wouldn't go near the remedy, because:

One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened.

[not guilty]

In order to get to a hearing on the merits, a plaintiff must in the first instance file a complaint setting forth a claim upon which relief can be granted against the particular defendants who have been sued. Trump´s pleadings have been failing that test left and right.

[jb]

"Denying a hearing on the merits, of course, makes sure that the exposure won’t meaningfully take place, in either direction. It just leaves the whole question unsettled."

When the entirety of the argument is "two people didn't get their votes counted because the mean Republicans that run their counties didn't give them a chance to cure their ballots so please invalidate the entire Pennsylvania election", it's not clear what you think a merits hearing is supposed to do.

Now, maybe if they'd not dropped the fraud claims from the complaint there would be something to have a hearing about. That's not anyone's fault but the crack Trump legal team's, though.

[Kazinski]

If there was fraud it wasn't reversable, because the ballots can't be segregated.

However even though the election results will stand and the court challenges should end, there is no reason not to audit the elections for problems. For instance Brian Kemp's proposal in Georgia to verify signatures were properly matched in Georgia will show whether there was enough fraud to swing the election, even if it can't be reversed.

[StellaLink]

Is there any reason to believe that the signature matching in Georgia was faulty? Is there any provision in Georgia law which allows for the audit of the signature matching?

[Brett Bellmore]

We're talking about Pennsylvania, and yes, the signature matching there was faulty, in as much as a court ordered that it not be done at all.

[StellaLink]

"We’re talking about Pennsylvania"

which explains this, which is what I was respondiing to:

"...Brian Kemp’s proposal in Georgia to verify signatures were properly matched in Georgia will show whether there was enough fraud to swing the election, even if it can’t be reversed."

As to Pennsylvania, the court found that the state election code does not require signature matching. To reject a ballot on that basis would be refusing to count a legal ballt and as we all know, everyone wants every legal ballot to be counted.

The court said, correctly, “It is not our role under our tripartite system of governance to engage in judicial legislation and to rewrite a statute in order to supply terms which are not present therein, and we will not do so in this instance.”

[Kazinski]

There is no reason the legislature shouldn't do an audit to verify that signatures matched, and revise the law if needed. That's exactly why it should be the legislature that conducts the oversight to ensure existing law is sufficient to ensure a fair election.

[not guilty]

That kind of prospective relief is not what the post-election litigation has been about. Legislative inquiry is an entirely different ballgame.

[jb]

"If there was fraud it wasn’t reversable, because the ballots can’t be segregated."

This is true, but if there was actually enough evidence of fraud to make the outcome of the election in doubt, that would be a reasonable basis for not certifying the election (then doing a re-do for most of the offices, and having the legislature figure out what to do for the Presidential electors).

The problem from Trump is: (a) there's not anything vaguely like enough evidence of this, and (b) they actually explicitly dropped the fraud claims in the case we're talking about here.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : I thought the legal avenue was pretty much doomed once the Supreme court refused the pre-election cases challenging election law violations

This is the second time I've seen this cult nonsense today (and with almost the exact same wording). It must be something the Handlers are putting out to the dupes. What Brett doesn't say (or doesn't know) is that even if SCOUS had ruled exactly per his cold little partisan heart, it wouldn't have changed a single outcome.

Lacking any proof of voter fraud aside from something he heard from Aunt Martha's hairdresser's cousin's proctologist, Brett is only interested in saying words that sound serious, even if they're void of meaning.

[Josh R]

Although he will leave the White House on January 20, Trump will never concede. He will endlessly tweet how he was robbed to rile up his base and perhaps setup a 2024 run. As such, the GOP can't put Trump behind them.

[bernard11]

Not only that.

He will continue to file baseless lawsuits and appeals, behave as destructively as possible, and put whatever obstacles he can in the way of a smooth transition.

Republicans who tolerate his conduct are simply being cowardly and disloyal.

[Brett Bellmore]

The GOP could easily put Trump behind them if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that he's remarkably popular with Republican voters.

[bernard11]

On this we agree.

[Josh R]

Exactly! For the most part, GOP politicians aren't profiles in courage.

[MoreCurious]

Funny how cult leaders seem to find ways to get their followers to drink the Kool-Aid.

[De Oppresso Liber]

...and also holds the record for lowest average approval rating for any president since polling started, and lost the popular vote by the most (twice!) of any sitting president.

Almost like he has a very enthusiastic but actually widely unpopular cult following.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can't have a high approval rating once the opposing party has decided that they're going to hate you to the last man. High partisan polarization rules out high approval ratings for Presidents.

[De Oppresso Liber]

And which president has been purposefully "polarizing"?

[De Oppresso Liber]

btw, it's pretty cool how you have a Trump excuse ready for any situation.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : High partisan polarization rules out high approval ratings for Presidents.

Within hours of of becoming president Trump was telling grotesque lies about his "crowd size". He had a ceremony the next day to honor CIA agents who died in the line of duty - but spent his entire speech whining about crowd size. With barely a break, Trump was on to lying about his "popular vote victory" ; fast-forward almost three years later & he's claiming Obama had Seal Team 6 killed or trying to sabotage our nation's election.

Now I get that you excuse that, along with all the other contempt Trump has shown our country's highest office. In the Cult, Trump's actions are seen as cute - maybe with a rueful shake of the head but never with censure. It's like a brat child shrieking and misbehaving while his doting parents look on smiling. "Isn't he such a card", they say proudly - while everyone else is grinding their teeth in silence.

So here's the question, Brett : When was everyone else ever given a chance to treat Trump like a normal president? When did Trump himself give them that chance?

[Brett Bellmore]

Doesn't matter. High political polarization guarantees that 50% approval is the ceiling for a President. All your approval has to come from your own base under conditions of high polarization.

Formerly Presidents could get some of their approval from members of the opposing party. That allowed approval rates to go substantially over 50%.

I've looked at a graph of Presidential approval by members of the same and the opposing party, and polarization has been rising for a couple decades now. At this point just the fact that a President is Republican guarantees single digit approval ratings from Democrats. And I suspect Biden will demonstrate the same is true when the shoe is on the other foot.

But I also suspect that Biden's low approval ratings will be blamed on Republicans for not liking him, not on Biden for not making them like him.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Trump, the worlds most enabled toddler. Is this finally one tantrum where he won’t get his way ?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Why doesn't anyone use such language to condemn the giant hissy-fits the left wing has when they burn down buildings and riot...?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It appears two Conspirators (perhaps three) are operating in the reality-based world with respect to this issue and willing to say so. The others remain mired in the clustermuck of right-wing cowardice, delusion, obeisance, and partisan paltriness.

The final over-under was 3.5. I took the under and expect to collect.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There are at least three who have posted here (Jonathan Adler, Ilya Somin, and Sasha Volokh), and I think Keith Whittington makes a fourth. Orin Kerr hasn't exactly been holding back either, but I don't know if he still counts as a conspirator (his last post was in early September).

[Kazinski]

David Post too.

But no matter, while I vigorously applauded much of the Trump presidency, the tax cuts, the wall, the supreme court picks and the judges generally, I won't miss Trump himself.

And I think that is mostly the people's verdict in the election too, keeping the Senate, gaining a dozen seats in the house indicates ticket splitting to preserve the gains Trump recorded, while showing Trump the door, narrowly.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Counting your Georgia bigots before they're hatched?

[Kazinski]

Sure, why not? At least for Perdue the Libertarian vote almost always breaks heavily GOP in the runoff.

And even if somehow the Dems win both, Joe Manchin is hardly going to be a rubber stamp. Plus a 7 seat house majority is going to be difficult to manage too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Prof. Kerr no longer deserves to be slurred with the label "Volokh Conspirator," in my judgment.

Profs. Adler and Somin are regular contributors who have distinguished themselves from the shambling cowards and delusional clingers in this context. Prof. Sasha Volokh and Whittington are infrequent contributors who have conducted themselves in an honorable manner.

That's four. A weak performance, even for a group of White, male, disaffected, ankle-nipping clingers . . . but better than I expected.

Congratulations and thanks to the reality-grounded Volokh Conspirators exhibiting decent character in this context.

[Union of Concerned Socks]

You clever Dick you

[StellaLink]

Agreeing to hear the appeal is a brilliant move. It keeps the case out of the hands of the crackpots on the Supreme Court. Even more brilliant will be the decision to grant the relief requested thus sending the case back to the district (keeping the SC away for at least another week) where it will be thrown out again. Meanwhile, PA certifies the election results and selects its slate of Biden electors. Tick, tick, tick.

[MollyGodiva]

SC will not hear the case anyhow. The Appeals Court can dismiss the suit for the same reasons that the district court did, then SC will just refuse cert without comment.

[Brett Bellmore]

Probably.

[StellaLink]

You are probably (and should be) right, but it's a risk not worth taking.

[MollyGodiva]

If SCOTUS wanted the case, they will get it no matter what. It can be delayed, but that is in no one's interest. SCOTUS is looking long term, the are on the bench for decades and they don't want to throw what little respect they have left out for partisan reasons. They need to rebuild the trust that they have lost, not lose it more.

[Brett Bellmore]

If the only way the Supreme court can have the left's respect is to always rule in their favor, it's not worth having. But I suspect several of the Justices are less concerned about respect, than they are avoiding having their homes firebombed.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Like all of the election officials in swing states currently? False flag, right, Brett?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not Republicans showing up in front of public officials houses with guillotines, you might notice. Or who spent the summer committing arson against occupied buildings. Or physically attacking Senators they don't like. Or trying to gun down the opposing party's House caucus.

At this point, if you're not a left-winger, you have to take death threats seriously.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Funny. When liberals fight stuff they get to take it to the ends of the earth before we make them cry uncle. Here we are supposed to think that despite the appeal (which is a matter of right) Trump should have to fold.

Do I think he will prevail? No, I highly doubt it. Are there some serious legal issues at play here? Yup. Are the anomalies in voter numbers that need to be investigated? Certainly. Was it fraud? That is why we investigate instead of just saying "oh no fraud here, never any fraud..."

But, here we have Trump and because the "by any means necessary" crowd is at work we have to throw everything else out the window, even if that comes at the expense of The Republic.

[MollyGodiva]

Except that these are being investigated and all get quickly debunked.

"But, here we have Trump and because the “by any means necessary” crowd is at work we have to throw everything else out the window, even if that comes at the expense of The Republic." Yes, it is nice that more are saying that Trump is causing grave damage to our country.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yes there were "investigations"....

[CJColucci]

At this point, almost nobody cares about Donald Trump. He has never acted like an adult in his life and he is unlikely to start now. Nobody cares about his rants, and his lawsuits are mere comic relief. The real issue is that a low-level bureaucrat who is legally obliged to recognize the "apparent winner" of the election and allow the transition process to go forward is holding real things up..

[Jimmy the Dane]

Or you could just write:

"I don't like Trump and want him gone yesterday. All this process stuff is getting old. Yeah, yeah, there is a process, but Trump should have been gone already with all the impeachments, witch hunts, etc. Don't people understand I don't like Trump!"

[CJColucci]

I could have written that if that is what I had wanted to say. It wasn't, so I didn't.

[David Nieporent]

Funny. When liberals fight stuff they get to take it to the ends of the earth before we make them cry uncle. Here we are supposed to think that despite the appeal (which is a matter of right) Trump should have to fold.

Hillary. Conceded. Right. After. The. Election.

[M L]

Pat Toomey in general provides a model of the establishment Republican type that should be rejected unto extinction.

What is this great urgency for a "transition process," in Toomey's mind, that he has been urging for several weeks now already? Curious.

Anything that is premised wholly on the supposed need to "help unify our country" is suspect. Do we, in fact, need to unify the country? If so, what are the terms on which this supposed union must occur? What will be the value or principle forming the basis around which to unify? Unity is not the same as peace and tolerance. The drive to "unify" lands and people under one banner and government is an animating force in the story of the whole of human history, and it's not generally a good thing.

[Sarcastr0]

Check out the 9-11 Commission Report on the importance of transitions.

[Jimmy the Dane]

So what I can read about how transitions are also an inside job?

[Kazinski]

If transitions are so important why did the Democrats do their best to sabotage Trump's transition, then even though they didn't have the votes delay every Trump appointment as long as they possibly could?

Trump lost, Biden won, but I don't blame Trump a bit for not cooperating with a Biden transition.

It shouldn't set them back much anyway, after 8 years of a Obama-Biden adminstration, a 4 year hiatus when you have most of the bureaucracy and all of the establishment in your camp it shouldn't be much of an effort to get a caretaker presidency up to a pedestrian speed.

[jb]

"If transitions are so important why did the Democrats do their best to sabotage Trump’s transition"

They didn't. Why do you think they did?

"then even though they didn’t have the votes delay every Trump appointment as long as they possibly could"

Yeah, that's wrong too: https://ballotpedia.org/Days_from_nomination_to_confirmation_for_Trump_administration_officials

"As of December 2019, the average time between nomination and confirmation of President Donald Trump's (R) 32 appointments of Cabinet and Cabinet-rank officials was 37 days. According to the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that tracks political appointees, the time for President Barack Obama's nominees was 66 days and for President George W. Bush's nominees was 45 days."

[Kazinski]

Does the term "the resistance" mean anything to you?

The Democrats threw a 4 year tantrum over Trump's election. If you are going to try to claim now it was business as usual, fine, then you can't complain if the Republicans obstruct Biden at every turn.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing you're talking about is anything like what Trump did. It's a lot more like what the right did to Obama.

[jb]

I'm claiming the specific things you wrote about in your previous post didn't happen. That's the opposite of calling them business as usual.

[MollyGodiva]

The values that we unify the county around is that we accept the results of clean elections, no matter who wins. You may not like it, you can oppose them in office, but you still accept the results and don't go off on a multi-week campaign of lies.

[Kazinski]

But yet that is precedent that was set in 2016.

[Josh R]

Clinton conceded less than 24 hours after the polls closed. The Obama administration cooperated in the transition.

[Sarcastr0]

So you're throwing as much of a pathetic tantrum as Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

"What is this great urgency for a “transition process,” in Toomey’s mind, that he has been urging for several weeks now already? Curious."

Press reports say Biden is naming Obama's last Deputy Secretary of State as Secretary. Does a guy who ran the department 4 years ago need some elaborate effort to take over?

[Bob from Ohio]

DHS secretary nominee was Deputy until 2017. Again, will not need a transition at all.

[Thrax2]

And hasn't been privy to any nonpublic information since then. Do you really think nothing has happened in the past four years that the SoS might want to know about?

[Bob from Ohio]

"SoS might want to know about?"

Its November. Plenty of time in December or even January for a half day briefing and to read some memos.

Government, except perhaps for NASA and DoD, is not rocket science.

[MollyGodiva]

Wow are you an idiot. There are hundreds of memos, days of briefings. Also all the nominees need to be vetted for security clearances, a process that needs to start ASAP. The transition is massive undertaking.

[Bob from Ohio]

"There are hundreds of memos, days of briefings. "

Mostly unnecessary and redundant.

It didn't start until after December 13 in 2000? We are three weeks form that date, yet a government still started on time.

[David Nieporent]

It didn’t start until after December 13 in 2000?

And that caused problems.

[Voize of Reazon]

The President is offered a daily briefing. Is this the hidden genius of Trump, that he didn't bother paying attention because once every three years would be plenty?

[grb]

Bob from Ohio : Does a guy who ran the department 4 years ago need some elaborate effort to take over?

I'd like everyone to chip-in with an opinion : Is Bob really this dumb?

Let's consider an analogy : Instead of Secretary of State, suppose we are talking about a major corporation, say Exxon Mobil. Would Bob think no transition was required to step-in as CEO if the person assuming the position had high rank in the company years before? I don't think Bob's that stupid, but admit I'm not sure.

[Bob from Ohio]

Transitions mainly exist to let campaign aides and ex-officials lobby for new jobs for themselves and their friends.

The current law didn't start until 1963, we had transitions before that, how did people cope without office space and piles of briefing books?

[MollyGodiva]

Ya, and in 1963 they realized that a smooth transition was needed and wrote a law to facilitate that. Government is more complicated now then it was then.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Government is more complicated now then it was then."
No, its just bigger.

[MoreCurious]

Yes, Bob really is this dumb.

[Josh R]

I think we should unify on the principle of the rule of law, rather than the rule of a man, by accepting the legitimacy of the election results.

[y81]

I would think that instead of haranguing us, Prof. Adler could have harangued his fellow lawprofs who spent the past four years delegitimizing the election of President Trump. But haranguing your colleagues has professional risks, and patriotism can hardly be extended to that extent.

[Jimmy the Dane]

And maybe denouncing the left wing efforts to "cancel" law firms and lawyers who are representing an unpopular client.....

[MoreCurious]

Representing an unpopular client is not the same thing as enabling a dishonest narcissist to pursue frivolous, meritless lawsuits in multiple courts.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Are you referring to the entirety of the anti-death penalty bar?

[MoreCurious]

Are you referring to the anti-death penalty bar who believe in the sanctity of life?

[Bob from Ohio]

"sanctity of life?"

sanctity of murderer's lives perhaps, not the victims.

[MoreCurious]

Yes, Bob, sanctity of life. Notwithstanding your delusions of grandeur, it simply isn't your call to decide who lives and who dies. Maybe it's time to have a little talk with your higher power about this concept. Let us know what he or she says, okay?

[Bob from Ohio]

" isn’t your call to decide who lives and who dies"

No, its the jury and judge's call under duly prescribed law.

The murderer on the other hand was ok with deciding by himself. Usually in the most horrific manner, which you don't care about of course.

My "higher power" decided this millennia ago, "Thou shall not commit murder".

[MoreCurious]

Thanks for confirming what we already suspected, Bob. Life must be pretty comfortable in your ivory tower.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob likes torture without due process of those suspected of terrorism.

His emotionalism is all he's got.

[Poor Yorick]

I know this is very unlikely to stop this right wing talking point, but has any of the law firms that refused to represent Trump in his lawsuits about the elections even come close to alleging they were "cancelled"? Is there any actual evidence that they've made their decision based on harassment rather than the fact the lawsuits are unsubstantiated by credible evidence?

[y81]

That's appallingly hypocritical, from someone whose comrades complain perpetually about microaggressions, to turn around and defend illegitimate attempts to harass and stigmatize people for exercising their legal rights on the grounds that the efforts aren't very effective.

[Poor Yorick]

So that's a no to my request for actual evidence. Thanks for playing.

[Krayt]

This may be an item better for an Open Thursday thread, but there were allegations of 100,000 votes in one incoming batch, 100% for Biden (statistically impossible even in the deepest blue region), and 100% had only the president marked, but no otber races or proposals. I don't know how true that was or if it came to anything.

Skipping this particular election and that allegation, the math guy in me wonders if government does that kind of analysis after each election. Better, are each incoming batches tagged somehow so later such analysis can look for batch-based statistical anomalies?

They might not be able to do much about an election that already happened, but they sure as heck could update laws to prevent such in the future.

[Kazinski]

There should be audits, but the challenges should end.

PA, MI, WI, AZ and GA all have GOP legislatures, and they should use oversight to make sure the law was followed, signatures were matched on mail in ballots, the machines worked properly, observers were allowed per the law. But all that should be outside the recount and certification process, and when the results are published we will know for sure if there were significant problems.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and they should use oversight to make sure the law was followed,"

We already know the law wasn't followed in PA. The state supreme court ordered that the law not be followed.

But, yes, the least, the absolute least, we should get out of this dumpster fire, is some serious efforts to make sure it doesn't happen again. Unfortunately, because Biden won, instead of Trump, we will likely see nothing of the sort. Rather, they'll decide that dumpster fires work pretty well.

[bernard11]

Skipping this particular election and that allegation

Let's not skip it.

Where did it come from and who made it, and what is the evidence for it? My guesses:

1. Someone's rear end.
2. Owner of said rear end.
3. Non-existent.

More important, who is circulating it, and why?

What kind of anomaly are you looking for? This? OK. But you're going to find places with legitimate 90-10, or even more extreme, counts.

[jb]

"but there were allegations of 100,000 votes in one incoming batch, 100% for Biden (statistically impossible even in the deepest blue region), and 100% had only the president marked, but no otber races or proposals. I don’t know how true that was or if it came to anything."

That would indeed be very suspicious and almost certainly a sign of fraud. But of course that never happened. You're actually conflating a few different "complaints" into one, and both the "big batches all for Biden" and "ballots with only votes for Biden" theories have been discredited. None of these sorts of claims are included in any of the Trump lawsuits.

"Skipping this particular election and that allegation, the math guy in me wonders if government does that kind of analysis after each election. Better, are each incoming batches tagged somehow so later such analysis can look for batch-based statistical anomalies?"

Different states do different things, but post-election audits are pretty common, yes. Independently, people do go back and look for mathematically unlikely patterns, which is how the fraud in NC-9 was discovered (by an independent researcher).

[Bob from Ohio]

In 2016 there was an organized effort to get Trump electors to vote for someone else. Wikipedia: Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election.

Then we had the Steele Dossier, "pee" tape, riots at the inauguration, mass "pussy" hat protests the next weekend, all aimed at making Trump seem illegitimate.

In 2004, 30 Democrats in the House and Senator Boxer voted against certifying the electors because Diebold stole the Ohio election. John Lewis, not obscure, boycotted the inauguration because Bush was "illegitimate".

I think we can wait awhile before we pull our hair out over Trump this year. He is just doing to Biden what Dems did in 2026.

[y81]

Yes, if the Conspirators weren't total hypocrites, they would demand that those officeholders from 2004 be stigmatized and denied any future honors.

[Thrax2]

Trump supporters can demonstrate in the streets to show their disagreement with Biden's agenda all they want, just as Clinton supporters did. None of that affected the transition in any way.

I have not heard that a smooth transition requires law enforcement to overlook the president-elect's ties to foreign intelligence, however, or his proposed national security advisor's lies about said ties.

[Bob from Ohio]

"president-elect’s ties to foreign intelligence"

Imaginary ones.

Investigating the victorious candidate, um, perhaps AG Barr should get on to Biden's Chinese connections now.

[MoreCurious]

Sorry, Barr's too busy making sure his Office of the Pardon Attorney doesn't forget to add all the Trump relatives and friends to the pardon list. And he needs to act quickly in case Trump decides to resign so that President Pence can pardon him.

[David Nieporent]

“president-elect’s ties to foreign intelligence”

Imaginary ones.

Setting aside whether that's even true, "I'm innocent so you shouldn't have investigated me to find out whether I'm guilty" is certainly a hot take.

[Social Justice is neither]

Maybe they should "peacefully protest" as the left has done for the last 6 months.

[jb]

"In 2016 there was an organized effort to get Trump electors to vote for someone else. Wikipedia: Faithless electors in the 2016 United States presidential election."

That's a weird thing to bring up since it was an effort organized by Republicans.

But also, let's see what actually happened:

"As a result of the seven successfully cast faithless votes, the Democratic Party nominee, Hillary Clinton, lost five of her pledged electors while the Republican Party nominee and then president-elect, Donald Trump, lost two."

[Bob from Ohio]

Anti-Trump republicans.

It failed, so will the current efforts.

[Kazinski]

The reason Hillary lost 5 electors and Trump 2 was it was an attempt to get enough electors to vote for a 3rd candidate to throw the election to the house. The fact that 5 Democrats defected from Hillary shows that it wasn't mostly republicans.

[David Nieporent]

That of course makes no sense; all 232 of Hillary's electors could have voted for a 3rd candidate and it wouldn't have thrown the election to the House. Only defections from Donald Trump could have accomplished that goal.

[Cal Cetín]

"President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options...

"UPDATE: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is hearing the Trump campaign's appeal on an expedited basis."

[Noscitur a sociis]

Where are you going with this?

[not guilty]

The Court of Appeals briefing schedule suggests that the court may be reminding the Trump team of the maxim ¨be careful what you ask for; you might get it.¨

[Sarcastr0]

The grasping at past slights by the Dems to justify any and all nonsense is really pointing to an unhealthy mindset.

[Boomer]

Past tense of THROW is THREW, not THROUGH. Good article otherwise...