NR: Checkmate in PA for Trump

[Jayarbie]

Stick a fork in them, it's over. LMAO.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...rump-campaign/

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a ruling that destroys the viability of those counts (and probably the remaining counts, too — I’ll come to that). In scrambling to respond to that ruling — which is binding on the federal district court where the campaign’s lawsuit is filed — the campaign shed the fraud-related counts. The lawyers should not be faulted for doing that. The fault lies in pressing ahead with a narrower suit that could not change the outcome of the race in Pennsylvania, even in the unlikely event that the campaign prevailed.

To cut to the chase, all that remains of the Trump campaign’s complaint is the claim that voters in pro-Trump counties were denied equal protection of law because mail-in voters in pro-Biden counties — mainly Philadelphia and Allegheny counties (Pittsburgh is in the latter) — were invited by election boards to cure defects in their ballots. Even if there were arguably merit to this claim (doubtful), it may only involve a few hundred votes, and certainly not more than a few thousand. That’s not enough. By current count, presumptive president-elect Biden leads President Trump by 83,000 votes. Since I’ve already made this point several times (see, e.g., here and here), perhaps it’s best to quote what the Third Circuit said just last Friday (my italics): For a party

to have standing to enjoin the counting of ballots . . . such votes would have to be sufficient in number to change the outcome of the election. . . . See, e.g., Sibley v. Alexander (“Even if the Court granted the requested relief, plaintiff would still fail to satisfy the redressability element of standing because enjoining defendants from casting the votes . . . would not change the outcome of the election”).

Even if a court were to ignore this fatal problem and entertain the campaign’s remaining claims, there are several other reasons why they would fail. Pennsylvania’s secretary of state argues that there is no equal protection violation because she advised all counties that they had the discretion to invite voters who’d submitted defective mail-in ballots to cure the defect. The fact that some counties availed themselves of this option does not mean the state violated the equal-protection rights of voters in counties that did not.

It's not hard to figure out why the Pennsyltucky counties didn't allow curing of absentee ballots - even in those red counties, Biden won the absentee vote. Now they're trying to use their own scheme to disqualify as many Biden voters as possible to claim victimization under the equal protection clause. The lawyers for the state haven't even brought this up yet, but probably won't have to.

In addition, the Third Circuit reasoned that the Bush v. Gore equal-protection theory that the Trump campaign relies on is limited to the peculiar facts of that post-election recount scenario, and not really applicable to this one. More important, the Third Circuit held that equal-protection claims of the kind the Trump voters are raising are too non-specific and speculative to confer standing to sue.

Furthermore, there is, to repeat, that mismatch between the claimed injury and the remedy sought: Over what may be just a relative handful of ballots, the Trump campaign seeks to prevent the state from certifying its election result, which would disenfranchise 7 million voters — something no court would do, and which would result in the same kind of equal-protection harm (to lawful Biden and Trump voters) that the campaign complains of, except astronomically worse.

In addition to that, the central finding of Bush v Gore was that recounting only limited counties is what violated the equal protections clause and that only a full recount of the entire state would be fair under the 14th amendment. So at the same time the Trump campaign is arguing to disenfranchise 7m voters in the name of equal protection under a ruling that stated limited recounts aren't fair, in WI, they are requesting recounts only in a limited number of counties, pretty much signaling that they don't really give a chit about the equal protection ruling in Bush v Gore.

The Third Circuit brings us news of how negligible is the number of votes involved. Out of 7 million total ballots cast in the Commonwealth, the secretary of state reported to the court that only 9,383 were received statewide in the three days after November 3. Even if all of these were Biden votes (impossible) and the court voided all of them (it won’t), Trump would still be 73,000 votes short. Of the 9,383 late-arriving ballots, only 655 lack a legible postmark — accounting for less than 1 percent of Trump’s deficit (and about one-hundredth of a percent of the statewide vote).

You know what, let Trump disqualify 655 votes from an 80,000 vote margin. LMAO.

inb4 hurr durr commiep3dodeepstate.

[Jayarbie]

Andrew McCarthy was Rudy Giuliani's personal attorney in his 2008 campaign and wrote the book Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency defending Trump during the impeachment. He is a lifelong conservative Republican and specifically a friend and ally of both Rudy and Trump. What he is not is a brainwashed, kool-aid drinking rube. If he sees it's over, it's over.

[exxtracool]

Checkmate for trump?


So he won?

[DynamicDot]

[xxAchillesxx]

Aren't you British?

[Suit]

Checkmate for trump?


So he won?

OP is a Libertarian. It isn't nice to pick on the mentally challenged.

[Jayarbie]

Aren't you British?

Me? No. I live in PA.

[Jayarbie]

Didn't or can't?

[saltypits]

I guess OP doesn't play chess. LOL.

[Jayarbie]

I guess OP doesn't play chess. LOL.

It's their headline, not mine.

[metroins]

[img]https://media.tenor.com/images/2b6dbe01721b3b626ed382e1d0aada53/tenor.gif[/imfg]

The TLDR:
The campaign is not expecting to win these cases with the arguments they put forth.
The campaign is incompetent by using the arguments they put forth.

Pick one.

[wings_unhinged]

Checkmate for trump?


So he won?

Only if 655 is more than 60,000.

[SwayWay]

Checkmate for Trump..... how dumb are you idiot? Do you know how Chess works lol you just admit he won.

[xxAchillesxx]

Me? No. I live in PA.

Ah, thought you were that golfer dude. Nevermind, carry on.

[HYDRAE]

See, OP's first mistake was posting more than 3 sentences that weren't made-up conspiracy gibberish from thedonald.win. Well reasoned legal arguments from qualified persons are no way to engage Trumpcels.

[ImpressiveGainz]

Checkmate in Pennsylvania for the Trump Campaign