'A total loss for the Trump campaign; The worst election litigation I have ever seen.'
In his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen discusses how badly Rudy et al lost their case in Pennsylvania. Judge Brann's opening remarks will live in legal history
"Instead this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state."
https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/gov.uscourts.pamd_.127057.202.0_1-1.pdf
At one point, Judge Brann compared the equal protection claim to a haphazardly stitched Frankenstein’s Monster. It was, in Rick Hasen's words, 'a dog of a case'. A case, I would add, argued by mutts, in service of a hyena.
Breaking: In Total Loss for Trump Campaign in Its Most Major Remaining Election Case, Federal Court in Pennsylvania Dismisses Case and Denies Motion to File Amended Complaint
The court first held that both the individual plaintiffs and the Trump campaign lacked standing to raise the equal protection complaint in the lawsuit. Among other thing, the court remarked: “Neither of these orders would redress the injury the Individual Plaintiffs allege they have suffered. 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.“
Further on the merits of the equal protection claim, the court held: “Requiring that every single county administer elections in exactly the same way would impose untenable burdens on counties, whether because of population, resources, or a myriad of other reasonable considerations.” And: “Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.”
This is a total loss for the Trump campaign and a dead end. The campaign can try to appeal this to the Third Circuit and even to the Supreme Court, but this is such a dog of a case I cannot see any chance of success there, even before the most sympathetic judges.
Rudy had truly participated in the worst piece of election litigation I have ever seen, both in terms of the lawyering and the antidemocratic nature of what the lawsuit attempted to do.
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=118942
= new reply since forum marked as read
And just a week ago, that SAME 3rd Circuit Court killed similar efforts, forcing them to keep revising their last doozy of gish gallop that they argued and just lost -
'
(FROM NOV. 16, 2020)
Kevin McCoy and Dylan Segelbaum USA TODAY
Published 11:56 p.m. ET Nov. 16, 2020 | Updated 8:25 p.m. ET Nov. 17, 2020
A federal appeals court ruling may have torpedoed several federal lawsuits that seek to overturn President Donald Trump’s all-but-certified defeat by former Vice President Joe Biden. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Friday that Pennsylvania voters and a congressional candidate could not use certain constitutional arguments to back their claims that some voters were disadvantaged by changes to election rules spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and U.S. Postal System delays.
On Monday, Trump supporters who used similar constitutional arguments in federal lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin voluntarily dismissed their claims. The dismissals came in advance of Tuesday's oral arguments in a federal lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania. Attorneys for the campaign narrowed their legal arguments in that case to avoid running afoul of the appeals court ruling.
Although the revised complaint still argues 689,472 ballots were improperly processed and counted outside the view of Trump election watchers, it does not seek legal relief specifically on that point. Nonetheless, during Tuesday's hearing Trump's personal attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, raised the possibility of seeking to invalidate those votes. He contended local election officials and their ballot processing rules "stole an election, at least in this Commonwealth."
However, when U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann asked whether the complaint alleges particular fraudulent acts, Giuliani answered: "No, your honor." Some election law and constitutional law experts predict that case, too, is in trouble.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/16/trump-lawsuits-challenging-election-handling-could-upended/6319960002/
And as we now know from the last sentence in the above, the case argued last Tuesday was not only "in trouble" but was elegantly blown out of the water.
All that was left of their arguments this past week was to whine that PA Counties like reddish (and Amish) Lancaster County did not apply the recommendations made by the PA SOS to allow people to fix issues with their ballots. ALL 67 Counties in PA were provided this guidance and some had time to and went on and tried to utilize that and others either didn't bother or refused to deal with a Democratic Secretary of State's guidance (not requirement but "option" ) and summarily had their ballots thrown out, in one case due to the oft-mentioned, nationally-discussed, and obsessed-over titillatingly-termed "naked ballot" issue.
These people, as part of the Plaintiffs, demanded "relief", not by being permitted to sue their own County Elections officials for not availing of the opportunity, but instead sought to disenfranchise millions of voters who successfully used this "no excuse absentee ballot" option, which was only available for the first time THIS YEAR!
The law (Act 77) was signed Oct. 31st, 2019 and went into effect for the primary election this year, which was supposed to happen April 28, 2020 but was moved to June 2, 2020 due to the coronavirus nightmare.
these people were all put-up for this. The GOP doesn't want to target anyone other than "blue counties" in "blue states". The strategy is quite clear in each state that they have filed suit in.
In essence, they are purposely cherry-picking places to eliminate votes so that what is left would provide a majority for 45, after which they would magically give that state's electors to him instead of to Biden. And in fact in some states, including here as I had recently seen, there were even suggestions to throw out ONLY the votes for the top of the ticket contest and leave the down-ballot races alone - all of which were being decided during this election and were on the SAME ballot (and in many cases, where they "won" ). It had been brought up to them that if they threw out all those mail-ins, they would invalidate GOP votes up and down the ballot and in PA's case, not certifying in time would cause the entire State House and 1/2 of the State Senate, to be vacated.
This is why the Voting Rights Act Sections 4 & 5, which were thrown out by the SCOTUS in 2013, need to be updated to codify a "revised" list of states that would require "pre-clearance" by DOJ, for any changes to their election rules that might be deemed to cause "voter suppression".
then I agree!
But anyone who made a conscious decision to sign on and cooperate with Ghouliani (and they most certainly know who the heck he is) to go through his gish gallop arguments in court with the expectation that if their mail-in votes didn't count, then no one's mail-in votes should count, then I have no sympathy. You had multiple lawyers dropping out once they got wind that the whole case wasn't really a case at all but a series of P.R. stunts to introduce nonsensical conspiracy theories into the political narrative in order to stoke the insanity of 73 million Americans.
I saw someone in another thread hypothesize that on Inauguration Day, 45 will hold his own "rally" where he "inaugurates himself" into a "new chapter" of crazy, firing up the crowd to continue the attacks against our system of government and our attempts to get a handle on an out-of-control pandemic that is bringing about what will eventually be yet another GOP-manufactured economic collapse. 
The majority, if not all, of their other litigation must be faring, much, much better in other venues. Wait. What's that you say?
