The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Third Circuit Rejects Trump Campaign's Appeal
Judge Stephanos Bibas, on behalf of unanimous panel, finds the Trump campaigns arguments have "no merit."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit roundly rejected the Trump campaign's appeal in its effort to challenge the election results in Pennsylvania. Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote the opinion for the panel, which also included Judges Smith and Chagares.
The opinion is brief, and pulls no punches. Here is how it begins:
Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.
The Trump Presidential Campaign asserts that Pennsylvania's 2020 election was unfair. But as lawyer Rudolph Giuliani stressed, the Campaign "doesn't plead fraud. . . . [T]his is not a fraud case." Mot. to Dismiss Hr'g Tr. 118:19–20, 137:18. Instead, it objects that Pennsylvania's Secretary of State and some counties restricted poll watchers and let voters fix technical defects in their mail-in ballots. It offers nothing more. This case is not about whether those claims are true. Rather, the Campaign appeals on a very narrow ground: whether the District Court abused its discretion in not letting the Campaign amend its complaint a second time. It did not.
Most of the claims in the Second Amended Complaint boil down to issues of state law. But Pennsylvania law is willing to overlook many technical defects. It favors counting votes as long as there is no fraud. Indeed, the Campaign has already litigated and lost many of these issues in state courts.
The Campaign tries to repackage these state-law claims as unconstitutional discrimination. Yet its allegations are vague and conclusory. It never alleges that anyone treated the Trump campaign or Trump votes worse than it treated the Biden campaign or Biden votes. And federal law does not require poll watchers or specify how they may observe. It also says nothing about curing technical state-law errors in ballots. Each of these defects is fatal, and the proposed Second Amended Complaint does not fix them. So the District Court properly denied leave to amend again.
Nor does the Campaign deserve an injunction to undo Pennsylvania's certification of its votes. The Campaign's claims have no merit. The number of ballots it specifically challenges is far smaller than the roughly 81,000-vote margin of victory. And it never claims fraud or that any votes were cast by illegal voters. Plus, tossing out millions of mail-in ballots would be drastic and unprecedented, disenfranchising a huge swath of the electorate and upsetting all down-ballot races too. That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised. So we deny the motion for an injunction pending appeal.
The opinion concludes:
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.
For those who care about such things, Judge Bibas was among President Trump's first nominees to the federal appellate bench. He is widely admired for his intellect and is generally considered quite conservative. A former law professor (most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, where he co-taught a seminar on conservative thought with Professor Amy Wax), he was regular speaker at Federalist Society events prior to his nomination. Judges Smith and Chagares were both appointed by President George W. Bush.
P.S. The panel also assessed costs against the Trump campaign. In other words, they will have to pay Pennsylvania's costs for defending against this appeal.
