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babylonsister

(171,106 posts)
Wed Nov 4, 2020, 09:09 PM Nov 2020

If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here's What Happens


If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here’s What Happens
It’s easy enough for the Trump campaign to file a lawsuit claiming improprieties, but a lot harder to provide evidence of wrongdoing or a convincing legal argument. Here’s what you need to know as the election lawsuits start to mount.
by Ian MacDougall Nov. 4, 4:47 p.m. EST


A 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: It’s 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 don’t 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 Trump’s Twitter feed. “They’ve actually demanded facts and haven’t been ruling on all-caps claims of fraud or suppression,” Levitt said. “They haven’t 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.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/if-trump-tries-to-sue-his-way-to-election-victory-heres-what-happens
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If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here's What Happens (Original Post) babylonsister Nov 2020 OP
K&R Blue Owl Nov 2020 #1
Music to my ears: FRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT WITH TREBLE DAMAGES! no_hypocrisy Nov 2020 #2
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