I’m of the opinion that a new lawsuit, with different plaintiffs, and with different counsel, is the way to go.
Whether PA Supreme Court’s action in extending ballot cure time is a violation of the Constitution may or may not be a Federal question. Generally, the Constitution allows state legislators to pick electors. So if the state Supreme Court interferes, is that an Un-Constitutional intervention by a branch that should have nothing to say on choosing electors? Or is it within the scope of a state Supreme Court to interpret state law? A good question, and one worth asking. This should be alleged as a separate cause of action, along with access by poll watchers, and along with failure to check signatures, and along with the disparate county-level procedures for curing defective mail-in ballots.
But as I read court opinions and briefs, and rehash the issue in my mind, the one thing that becomes clear is that an ounce of prevention is more effective than a ton of cure.
It’s not like we did not have warnings. DJT was warning of mail in ballot fraud months ago. The PA legislature enacted mail in ballot procedures. Why wasn’t political pressure brought upon them to choke this? Why didn’t Republican precincts allow curing of defective mail-in ballots? Why didn’t McConnell pass uniform Federalized election security measures?
You don’t wait until you jump out of an airplane to fix your parachute.
If the Third Circuit had ruled favorably, the Second Amended Complaint would be “the operative complaint” and Team Trump could file a motion based on the allegations of that complaint, and maybe seek an order shortening time (which the trial court had been willing to grant before)
I can’t comment on what Rudy is doing here, but as a Monday morning quarterback, I can’t help but be disappointed.
> But as I read court opinions and briefs, and rehash the issue in my mind, the one thing that becomes clear is that an ounce of prevention is more effective than a ton of cure.
That would probably be a truism if it were practical to have been achieved pre-emptively; agreed.
> It’s not like we did not have warnings. DJT was warning of mail in ballot fraud months ago. The PA legislature enacted mail in ballot procedures. Why wasn’t political pressure brought upon them to choke this? Why didn’t Republican precincts allow curing of defective mail-in ballots? Why didn’t McConnell pass uniform Federalized election security measures?
Not certain at my end, but a WAG which i would imagine other folks also harbor is that much of that idealistic election reform stuff was difficult from the get go given the inertia and the election-reform-resistant embeddedness of the deep state. look at the PA legislature now— if they are not chomping at the bit now to prove their worth, then why ever could they have been presumed to favor election reform prior to the election? just because trump was aware of it does not necessarily mean that he had the political capital to expend on it and still keep all of the other numerous political promises that he did manage to keep in his first 3.5 years of office.
> You don’t wait until you jump out of an airplane to fix your parachute.
For some reason, I keep thinking of Sun Tzu... Something like pretend to be confused and weak, and then strike when your enemy is lulled into believing that you are too weak to fight back, and lets his guard down.
In order to prevent widespread rioting and so on if the courts decide in his favor, Trump needs to prevail decisively not just in the courts of law but also in the court of public opinion. He can yet do that by providing conclusive evidence of massive electoral fraud to the appropriate venues. This is worth doing because it is worthwhile to avoid as much violence as possible, and also because (speculatively) trump can catch more bad guys by his cast-wide-net strategy.
I am not a lawyer, and I try not make a habit of staying at Ho-liday Inns...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11gNvDD6wI8