you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you for the link but you do realise that's a partisan opinion by the respondents, giving their reasons why they think the case should be thrown out? It is not the judge's ruling, nor is it the SCOTUS' majority position. Everything in it has to be read as the opinion of the people with a vested interest in rejecting the lawsuit and keeping the results.

So the respondents say that there were not enough ballots to make a difference. Okay, maybe that's true, but if they were cheating that's what they would say too, and their claim regarding the number of ballots was not cross-examined or proven. They just gave a number and we're supposed to accept it unquestioningly.

Their other arguments are important. They ask the judge to reject the petition because:

  1. The case was moot. Pennsylvania had already certified the election, so too bad. They wrote: "The General Election is over. Its results have been certified. Even if Petitioner were to succeed on its claims ... there would be no effect whatsoever on the outcome of any election."

  2. The petitioner didn't have standing to sue. "Petitioner lacks Article III standing to advance these claims". Even if the petitioner had absolutely 100% undeniable proof of fraud it would not matter because the law doesn't allow them to sue to overturn the results. “private plaintiffs lack standing to sue for alleged injuries attributable to a state government’s violations of the Elections Clause.” And then later: "Petitioner has no concrete and particular interest in vindicating the “alleged usurpation of the General Assembly’s rights under the Elections and Electors Clauses.”

  3. Even if the petitioner had standing they explicitly states that the court should not rule on matters of fact (that is, on the evidence): "Petitioner repeatedly seeks to litigate questions of fact ... This Court has long recognized that it “do[es] not grant a certiorari to review evidence and discuss specific facts.” U.S. v. Johnston, 268 U.S. 220, 227 (1925). This is precisely what Petitioner seeks here."

Let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that the Pennsylvania election was absolutely scrupulously fair in every single way. Let's just ignore the bait and switch from challenging the (allegedly illegal) extension of mail-in votes past the election period for mail in votes to only the alleged 669 without a legible postmark. (What about those with legible postmarks after the election was over?) Then, in this best possible case for you:

  • suppose Pennsylvania election officials truly did nothing illegal;
  • suppose the election was absolutely legal and fair in every single way;
  • suppose that only those 669 mail-in votes are relevant and not the other mail-in votes;
  • suppose they would not have made a difference to the final result;
  • and suppose that the court was 100% correct in rejecting this petition for the reasons given.

Then even in the best case scenario for you, it would still support my position that the American election system is designed to make it almost impossible to challenge election results and that the election challenges were thrown out, not because of the quality of the evidence but on legal technicalities like lack of standing.

And this is my point. Of the hundreds or maybe thousands of challenges to the 2020 election, almost all of them were thrown out on the basis of legal technicalities like this one. I'm not aware of one single case where the evidence was presented to a judge and jury by witnesses, with their claims cross-examined.

[–]ActuallyNot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay, maybe that's true, but if they were cheating that's what they would say too, and their claim regarding the number of ballots was not cross-examined or proven.

And by "cheating" you mean counting votes from legitimate voters, who may have posted their vote too late, and may have voted for any candidate?

They just gave a number and we're supposed to accept it unquestioningly.

"Counties reported that only 9,428 ballots were received within the three-day extension at issue, and only 669 of those lacked a legible postmark."

You think the supreme court is lying about what the counties reported?

Then even in the best case scenario for you, it would still support my position that the American election system is designed to make it almost impossible to challenge election results and that the election challenges were thrown out, not because of the quality of the evidence but on legal technicalities like lack of standing.

No, by actual realities like the number of votes being contested was far too small to make a difference.

I'm not aware of one single case where the evidence was presented to a judge and jury by witnesses, with their claims cross-examined.

True. I can't think of one that presented any evidence to a judge that warranted consideration. That's not a failing of the election system. It's a consequence of the fact that Trump was fundraising off the court cases, so he was incentivised to bring court cases that weren't worthy of bringing, since at the end of it he was up money from his donors.