Posted on 12/11/2020 12:55:02 PM PST by rxsid
SCOTUS 9-0: Election Day Is One Single Day. Listen to oral argument from Foster v. Love (1997):
If the state Legislatures would just sit down for an hour and listen to the oral argument in Foster v. Love, they would have such an easy time understanding their plenary authority was triggered at midnight after Nov. 3rd. (You may listen to the audio here.). Let’s examine some of the transcript:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:“It is an election, and it seems to me, being an election it conflicts with the Federal single Election Day.”
You can’t canvass for days/weeks on end. As Justice Ginsburg said, it’s “the Federal single Election Day.” And the unanimous opinion in this case was consistent with the oral argument, holding that “the election” must be consummated on “the day”.
Justice Souter then had this heated (listen to it) exchange with the Louisiana Attorney General, who was knocked out cold at oral argument, and then lost in a 9-0 decision. That’s going to be the outcome now as well if the state Legislatures would stop being bullied by their governors, secretaries, and attorneys general, and start fighting to end the usurpation of their elector choosing plenary authority. Check it out:
AG Richard I. Ieyoub
—Louisiana could do that, Your Honor, but what we’re saying here is that Louisiana’s open primary scheme in no way really clashes or conflicts with the Federal Election Day statute.Justice David H. Souter
Well, it does conflict, because it has an election on a day other than the day specified by the Federal statute.That’s why we’re here.
Isn’t that a clear conflict?
AG Richard I. Ieyoub
No, Your Honor, because I believe that you can’t necessarily give a literal interpretation in this particular–Justice David H. Souter
Why not?AG Richard I. Ieyoub
—Well—Justice David H. Souter
The statute’s clear.AG Richard I. Ieyoub
—simply because I think that it might… it would lead to unreasonable–Justice David H. Souter
What’s unreasonable about it?Congress has decided that it wants the election to occur uniformly on a given day in November throughout the United States.
Sometimes, oral argument is not a good predictor of outcome, but looking back on this one, or rather, listening back – you really must hear this for yourselves – it was a very bad day for the Louisiana Attorney General.
State Representatives and Senators should be adopting Foster v. Love, 522 U.S. 67 (1997), in their statements to the public, and they should join this action now before the Supreme Court. The law is with you.
Look who's baaaacckk.
SCOTUS 9-0: Election Day Is One Single Day. Listen to oral argument from Foster v. Love (1997)
oh I see it in the info. i only skim articles. I need to see it fast.
Would this void all the early voting going on everywhere? Seems like it should.,.,
It's linked, twice, in the posted story. Look for the words "here" and "listen" that are linked.
:)
Great find - it has been my opinion that SCOTUS will rule 5-4 in favor of TX or 9-0 in favor of Texas. The delay in telling the outcome today could be SCOTUS debate or, if the decision were made earlier today, government prepping and positioning for potential riots.
Oh, this is delicious.
I want a 9-0 in favor. But, a 7-2 or 8-1 would be good too. 5-4 is civil war.
I think they have to go 9-0 for the reasons you stated. 5-4 or cased denial will tip the scales for sure.
Won’t the defense simply argue that the votes were cast on (or before) election day, but only that the administrative act of counting the votes wasn’t completed on that day?
We may have to live with that, particularly with this court. As it is, anything else would be just delaying the inevitable.
Excellent find. Was this case cited in the Texas brief?
A great question, discussed and answered here:
3 U.S.C. § 7 Proves Electors Must Be Appointed On Election Day, Not Certification Day
...CONGRESS AUTHORIZED EARLY VOTING BY ABSENTEE BALLOT.
The article linked above by Ren Jander at Thepostemail.com has this all covered discussing a 9th Circuit case that interpreted Foster v. Love:
“In Voting Integrity Project v. Keisling, 259 F. 3d 1169 (2011), the 9th Circuit reviewed an Oregon statute that allowed early voting by mail, holding that nothing in Foster v. Love prohibited early voting, as long as the election was not consummated until federal Election Day. While Oregon allowed early voting, well before Election Day, unlike the Louisiana case, Oregon also continued voting on Election Day, the same day the election was decided.The 9th Circuit took notice of federal statutes that require the States to accommodate absentee ballots, which inherently require multi-day early voting, holding that 2 U.S.C. § 7 did not conflict with early absentee ballot voting, because the evils of early voting were not encouraged by it, since the results of early voting were not released to the public until Election Day, and therefore could not influence later elections. The 9th Circuit assumed Congress intended both statutes to co-exist.”
Early voting is only part of “the election”, and as long as the election isn’t consummated prior to Election Day, the 9th Circuit was cool with it. Will SCOTUS be cool with it? I think so. Because Congress is given authority over the “time” of choosing electors. In McPherson, SCOTUS stated that not even the Legislature could mess with the time, and in that case, Michigan was forced to change her statute to comply with Congress setting a uniform day for electors to meet, just as Louisiana was forced to change her statute allowing federal elections to be consummated in October. (See my previous post.)
In Foster v. Love, the Court defined “the election” as the combined actions of voters and officials in selecting a winner on “the day” prescribed by Congress, aka election day. This is why, throughout the oral argument for Foster v. Love, the law was consistently referred to as the federal election day statute.
Early voting is allowed, because Congress has authorized it by way of absentee ballot statutes. But Congress has not authorized late ballots, or canvassing past Election Day. And to the extent a State, by legislative enactment, or otherwise, let’s call it Executive Branch usurpation, as happened in both Pennsylvania and Georgia, such extensions are preempted by the federal election day statutes, as was the holding in Foster v. Love, and McPherson v. Blacker, which held:
“The third clause of section 1 of Article II of the Constitution is: ‘The Congress may determine the time of choosing the Electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.’…The state law in question here fixes the first Wednesday of December as the day for the meeting of the electors, as originally designated by Congress. In this respect it is in conflict with the act of Congress, and must necessarily give way.“
[The money shot...]
You see how they did that? State law cannot change federal election day. Louisiana tried that. But Louisiana got squashed 9-0. You can’t consummate the election on any other day besides the day prescribed by Congress, this year falling on November 3, 2020. It’s ok to have early voting, as long as the States don’t allow the results to be known, and as long as the election isn’t consummated before election day.
That being understood, in what universe does Congress allow a federal election to be consummated after federal election day? Not the one we are living in, unless we are now living in a nation completely untethered to federal statutes, and long held Supreme Court precedent.
...
But Democrats don’t give a damned about laws, especially our Constitution unless it serves their purpose tp achieve their end goals. Activist judges and social democrats need to start paying a personal price for their anti-Americanism dictates if this country is to survive as a Constitutional Republic!
Well, they could certainly try to argue that, but it would be going against a unanimous SCOTUS decision (& ironically, a 9th circuit case as well). Explained in post #16.
Don't kid yourself. CWII is already here. Any judgement in favor of Texas is going to set the libtards off into a tizzy and any judgement in their favor is also going to set them off into a tizzy.
Be prepared. Be armed.
Unfortunately, it looks like they didn't.
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