Donald Trump speaking to Axios (screen capture) First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out Donald Trump’s election lawsuit today. The response comes just two days after the Donald asked the high court to toss the certification of a contest he lost by nearly 21,000 votes. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In the 4-3 decision, the justices said they would not accept the case he filed directly with them. The president can try to pursue the matter in a lower court, but Thursday’s ruling is a setback that shows he is near the end of the road with his legal challenges in Wisconsin.”
🚨🚨BREAKING: Wisconsin Supreme Court DENIES Trump petition to bring original action to challenge the results of the recount in state Supreme Court.
And then, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Congressman Mike Kelly’s request to declare universal mail-in voting unconstitutional in the state. Kelly and other GOP plaintiffs were asking the high court to either invalidate 2.5 million mail-in votes or to completely erase the 2020 results in the Keystone State and order the GOP-controlled legislature to pick the presidential electors who will vote in the Electoral College. Kelly and company got a one sentence response.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania DENIES Rep. Mike Kelly’s request to stay their order refusing to invalidate the election that he won.
Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain) Another loss for Team Trump as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed an election challenge led by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, who attempted to argue that universal mail-in voting violated the state constitution. From NBC News:
Kelly, along with several other Pennsylvania Republicans, sought to invalidate millions of mail-in votes, which could have ceded a key state won by President-Elect Joe Biden to President Donald Trump.
The ruling said, “Petitioners sought to invalidate the ballots of the millions of Pennsylvania voters who utilized the mail-in voting procedures. … Alternatively, Petitioners advocated the extraordinary proposition that the court disenfranchise all 6.9 million Pennsylvanians who voted in the General Election and instead ‘direct the General Assembly to choose Pennsylvania’s electors.'”
The high court ruled no on all counts and said, “All other outstanding motions are dismissed as moot.” It said the claim could have resulted in the “disenfranchisement” of millions of voters.
The court also criticized Kelly and company for filing their lawsuit more than a year after the law establishing universal mail-in voting was passed by the state legislature. Today’s ruling wipes out a lower court order that had blocked officials from certifying the Keystone State’s election results. More than 26 election challenges filed by Team Trump have now been dismissed by courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. So. Much. Winning.
It’s very impressive that it only took ONE WEEK — from the filing of the original suit at the trial court level — for the PA Supreme Court to deal it a death blow.
The PA Supreme Court has just dismissed a case from PA Republicans that claimed mail in voting is unconstitutional (it is not), that those ballots should be thrown out (they will not be) & PA’s certification should be prohibited (it won’t be).
Donald Trump on 60 Minutes (screen capture) The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed last weekend’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit brought by Team Trump in Pennsylvania that was argued by Rudy Giuliani. Pennsylvania has already certified its election results which show President-elect Joe Biden won the Keystone State by 81,660 votes. And Trump can’t blame the judge in this new ruling – it was one of his own nominees. The all-GOP panel agreed the case had ‘no merit.’ From the New York Times:
The 21-page ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was a complete repudiation of Mr. Trump’s effort to halt Pennsylvania’s certification process and a full-throated affirmation of a decision last Saturday by Judge Matthew W. Brann of Federal District Court in Williamsport, Penn., who dealt the Trump campaign its initial defeat in the case.
“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote on behalf of the appeals court. “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.”
Trump’s lawyers have already announced they plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court where Trump believes his 3 handpicked justices would give him a win. BUT – most legal eagles doubt the high court would be willing to take up a case where the evidence is lacking and ultimately won’t change the outcome of the race. Even if SCOTUS were to take the case and rule in Trump’s favor, Biden would still have 286 votes in the Electoral College – far more than the required 270 to win the White House.
As Judge Bibas writes: “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.”
There is no chance SCOTUS will review the suit dismissed by Judge Brann seeking to block Pennsylvania’s certification. The lawyers representing the President are either delusional or intentionally misleading him and his supporters.
The US Court of Appeals has totally destroyed Trump’s claims in Pennsylvania. The opinion, written by Trump appointee Steve Bibas, is devastating. It didn’t even bother holding oral argument, saying the “claims have no merit.”
Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, told Republican lawmakers at a meeting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that – in addition to believing Donald Trump won the Keystone State (he didn’t) – Trump “may have actually won Virginia” as well. Trump lost Virginia to Joe Biden by a margin of 451,138 votes. If Team Trump had come within 1 percent of winning in Virginia, don’t you think those results would have been bandied about and challenged publicly these last few weeks??? At the end of the day, Rudy and his team did not present ANY actual evidence of vote tampering or voter fraud. But keep talking Rudy… Bloomberg reporter Josh Wingrove followed the event on Twitter here.
“I think we may have actually won Virginia.” — Rudy Giuliani, as if Biden didn’t win Virginia by nearly half a million votes pic.twitter.com/AMMqzINXhk
Donald Trump (via Axios – screen capture) A federal judge has thrown out the Trump campaign’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania hoping to stop the certification of ballots there likening Team Trump’s arguments to Frankenstein’s monster, saying it appeared “haphazardly stitched together.” From the New York Times:
A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed on Saturday night a lawsuit by the Trump campaign that had claimed there were widespread improprieties with mail-in ballots in the state, ending the last major effort to delay the certification of Pennsylvania’s vote results, which is scheduled to take place Monday.
In a scathing order, Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote that Mr. Trump’s campaign, which had asked him to effectively disenfranchise nearly seven million voters, should have come to court “armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption” in its efforts to essentially nullify the results of Pennsylvania’s election.
But instead, Judge Brann complained, the Trump campaign provided only “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were “unsupported by evidence.”
BREAKING: Federal judge dismisses Trump campaign's last lawsuit seeking to delay certification of Pennsylvania's election results. pic.twitter.com/oYi0wLHQUe
"This Court has been presented with … speculative accusation … 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."
"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."
Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain) One of the Trump campaign’s big ‘hail Mary’ moves is to try and flip the results of the presidential election by encouraging Republican-controlled state legislatures to disenfranchise voters in their states by picking members of the Electoral College that would vote for Trump instead of the Joe Biden for their state. But GOP leaders in key states flipped by Joe Biden in this election cycle have told the Associated Press they have no plans to subvert state laws.
State GOP lawmakers in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all said they would not intervene in the selection of electors, who ultimately cast the votes that secure a candidate’s victory. Such a move would violate state law and a vote of the people, several noted.
“I do not see, short of finding some type of fraud — which I haven’t heard of anything — I don’t see us in any serious way addressing a change in electors,” said Rusty Bowers, Arizona’s Republican House speaker, who says he’s been inundated with emails pleading for the legislature to intervene. “They are mandated by statute to choose according to the vote of the people.”
The idea loosely involves GOP-controlled legislatures dismissing Biden’s popular vote wins in their states and opting to select Trump electors.
Team Trump was probably hoping that such ploys would become entangled in legal rabble-rousing that would end up at the Supreme Court where the Donald’s handpicked conservative justices might hand him a win. In related news, the Washington Post reports “two prominent law firms have sought to withdraw from representing the Trump legal effort in Arizona and Pennsylvania.”
(stock image of a mail-in ballot) A postal worker in Pennsylvania who claimed that a postmaster in Erie told post office employees to backdate ballots received after Election Day has reportedly admitted he lied. His claims have been spread by high ranking Republicans as evidence of “widespread voter fraud.” This was supposed to be the Republicans big “gotcha.” From the Washington Post:
A Pennsylvania postal worker whose claims have been cited by top Republicans as potential evidence of widespread voting irregularities admitted to U.S. Postal Service investigators that he fabricated the allegations, according to three officials briefed on the investigation and a statement from a House congressional committee.
Richard Hopkins’s claim that a postmaster in Erie, Pa., instructed postal workers to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day was cited by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) in a letter to the Justice Department calling for a federal investigation.
Attorney General William P. Barr subsequently authorized federal prosecutors to open probes into credible allegations of voting irregularities and fraud, a reversal of long-standing Justice Department policy.
But on Monday, Hopkins, 32, told investigators from the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General that the allegations were not true, and he signed an affidavit recanting his claims, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.
The original allegations were reported last week by Project Veritas, an organization that has been caught spinning fiction into made-up ‘facts’ trying to demonize the mainstream media. After being hailed as a hero among Trump supporters, a GoFundMe campaign was launched that raised over $135K for Hopkins – until the campaign was yanked down today in light of his reversal. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee tweeted the revelations late Tuesday.
BREAKING NEWS: Erie, Pa. #USPS whistleblower completely RECANTED his allegations of a supervisor tampering with mail-in ballots after being questioned by investigators, according to IG.
#USPS IG investigators informed Committee staff today that they interviewed Hopkins on Friday, but that Hopkins RECANTED HIS ALLEGATIONS yesterday and did not explain why he signed a false affidavit.
Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States, CNN projects, after a victory in Pennsylvania puts the Scranton-born Democrat over 270 electoral votes.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (screen capture) Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters Friday that Trump needs to “put his big boy pants on” and acknowledge that “he lost and he needs to congratulate the winner.” “Just as Jimmy Carter did, just as George H.W. Bush did and frankly just as Al Gore did,” added Kenney. “Stop this and let us move forward as a country.” As of 1:24 p.m., Biden leads with about 13,492 votes in Pennsylvania with just under 112,000 mail ballots left to count, according to the secretary of state’s website.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters Friday that Trump needs to “put his big boy pants on” and acknowledge that “he lost.” Biden currently holds a narrow lead in that state over Trump #Election2020https://t.co/FGnEUJtyxspic.twitter.com/6rabIFtnd6
This is post is to be considered as an encouragement to make sure you get out and vote and not in any way to lead to complacency. We did that four years ago. Don’t do it again. From Pittsburgh’s CBS News affiliate KDKA:
A new Monmouth University poll has former Vice President Joe Biden with a 5-point to 7-point lead over President Donald Trump among likely voters in Pennsylvania.
According to the poll results, Joe Biden leads President Trump by a 51% to 44% margin among likely voters, if vote turnout is high.
In a low turnout scenario, which could happen if a large number of mail-in ballots were to be rejected, Biden leads President Trump by a 50% to 45% margin among likely voters.
The new survey indicates Biden’s support from young voters and people of color is helping to offset Trump’s gains among senior voters and the most competitive counties in the commonwealth. Also – the ongoing pandemic is affecting the election as more voters trust Biden to handle the coronavirus pandemic than Trump.
New Monmouth poll of Pennsylvania: Biden 51% Trump 44% That’s in a high turnout model. In a low turnout scenario it’s: Biden 50% Trump 45%https://t.co/ZmkQ4nzit2
