compilation of 2020 election and vote threads - please add any I missed

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

compilation of 2020 election and vote threads - please add any I missed - & misc posts

POSTED BY: 1KIKI
UPDATED: Friday, November 22, 2024 07:34
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Tuesday, February 23, 2021 5:32 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021 6:22 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Justice Clarence Thomas Dissents From Supreme Court On Election Case: ‘We Need to Make It Clear’
https://www.nationandstate.com/2021/02/22/justice-clarence-thomas-diss
ents-from-supreme-court-on-election-case-we-need-to-make-it-clear/

The court on Monday announced it won’t take up lawsuits challenging a Pennsylvania state court decision that relaxed ballot-integrity measures, including a move to extend the ballot-receipt deadline during the November election by three days ...

“This is not a prescription for confidence,” Thomas wrote on Monday, adding that “changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough.” Thomas, considered by many to be the most conservative justice, said the court should have granted a review.

“That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future,” Thomas wrote (pdf). “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”

Other than Thomas, Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also dissented.

“If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear. If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic,” Thomas, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, also wrote.

“We are fortunate that many of the cases we have seen alleged only improper rule changes, not fraud,” Thomas wrote. “But that observation provides only small comfort. An election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence. Also important is the assurance that fraud will not go undetected.”

Quote:
Thomas, dissenting opinion

Elections are “of the most fundamental significance under our constitutional structure.” See Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 184 (1979). Through them, we exercise self-government. But elections enable self-governance only when they include processes that “giv[e] citizens (including the losing candidates and their supporters) confidence in the fairness of the election.” See Democratic National Committee v. Wisconsin State Legislature, ante, at 3 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in denial of application to vacate stay); accord, Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4 (2006) (per curiam) (“Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy”). Unclear rules threaten to undermine this system. They sow confusion and ultimately dampen confidence in the integrity and fairness of elections. To prevent confusion, we have thus repeatedly — although not as consistently as we should — blocked rule changes made by courts close to an election.

An election system lacks clear rules when, as here, different officials dispute who has authority to set or change those rules. This kind of dispute brews confusion because voters may not know which rules to follow. Even worse, with more than one system of rules in place, competing candidates might each declare victory under different sets of rules. We are fortunate that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to change the receipt deadline for mail-in ballots does not appear to have changed the outcome in any federal election. This Court ordered the county boards to segregate ballots received later than the deadline set by the legislature. Order in Republican Party of Pa. v. Boockvar, No. 20A84. And none of the parties contend that those ballots made an outcome-determinative difference in any relevant federal election. But we may not be so lucky in the future. Indeed, a separate decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court may have already altered an election result. A different petition argues that after election day the Pennsylvania Supreme Court nullified the legislative requirement that voters write the date on mail-in ballots. See Pet. for Cert., O. T. 2020, No. 20–845. According to public reports, one candidate for a state senate seat claimed victory under what she contended was the legislative rule that dates must be included on the ballots. A federal court noted that this candidate would win by 93 votes under that rule. Ziccarelli v. Alle-gheny Cty. Bd. of Elections, 2021 WL 101683, *1 (WD Pa., Jan. 12, 2021). A second candidate claimed victory under the contrary rule announced by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He was seated. That is not a prescription for confidence. Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough. Such rule changes by officials who may lack authority to do so is even worse. When those changes alter election results, they can severely damage the electoral system on which our self-governance so heavily depends. If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear. If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic.

At first blush, it may seem reasonable to address this question when it next arises. After all, the 2020 election is now over, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision was not outcome-determinative for any federal election. But whatever force that argument has in other contexts, it fails in the context of elections. For at least three reasons, the Judiciary is ill equipped to address problems — including those caused by improper rule changes — through post-election litigation. First, post-election litigation is truncated by firm time-lines. That is especially true for Presidential elections, which are governed by the Electoral Count Act, passed in 1887. That Act sets federal elections for the day after the first Monday in November — last year, November 3. See 3 U.S. C.§1. Under a statutory safe-harbor provision, a State has about five weeks to address all disputes and make a “final determination” of electors if it wants that decision to “be conclusive.” §5. Last year’s deadline fell on December 8, and the Electoral College voted just six days later.§7. Five to six weeks for judicial testing is difficult enough for straightforward cases. For factually complex cases, compressing discovery, testimony, and appeals into this timeline is virtually impossible. Second, this timeframe imposes especially daunting constraints when combined with the expanded use of mail-in ballots. Voting by mail was traditionally limited to voters who had defined, well-documented reasons to be absent. See, e.g., Moreton, Note, Voting by Mail, 58 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1261, 1261–1264 (1985). In recent years, however, many States have become more permissive, a trend greatly accelerated by COVID–19. In Pennsylvania, for example, mail-in ballots composed just 4% of ballots cast in 2018. But the legislature dramatically expanded the process in 2019, thereby increasing the mail-in ballots cast in 2020 to 38%. This expansion impedes post-election judicial review because litigation about mail-in ballots is substantially more complicated. For one thing, as election administrators have long agreed, the risk of fraud is “vastly more prevalent” for mail-in ballots. Liptak, Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises, N.Y. Times, Oct. 6, 2012. The reason is simple: “[A]bsentee voting replaces the oversight that exists at polling places with something akin to an honor system.” Ibid. Heather Gerken, now dean of Yale Law School, explained in the same New York Times article that absentee voting allows for “simpler and more effective alternatives to commit fraud” on a larger scale, such as stealing absentee ballots or stuffing a ballot box, which explains “‘why all the evidence of stolen elections involves absentee ballots and the like.’” Ibid. The same article states that “[v]oting by mail is now common enough and problematic enough that election experts say there have been multiple elections in which no one can say with confidence which candidate was the deserved winner.” Ibid. Pennsylvania knows this well. Even before widespread absentee voting, a federal court had reversed the result of a state senate election in Philadelphia after finding that the supposedly prevailing candidate “conducted an illegal absentee ballot conspiracy and that the [election officials] covertly facilitated the scheme with the specific purpose of ensuring a victory for” that candidate. Marks v. Stinson, 1994 WL 146113, *29, *36 (ED Pa., Apr. 26, 1994). This problem is not unique to Pennsylvania, and it has not gone away. Two years ago, a congressional election in North Carolina was thrown out in the face of evidence of tampering with absentee ballots. Because fraud is more prevalent with mail-in ballots, increased use of those ballots raises the likelihood that courts will be asked to adjudicate questions that go to the heart of election confidence.2 Fraud is not the only aspect of mail-in ballots that complicates post-election judicial review. Also relevant are the corresponding safeguards that States put in place to ameliorate that heightened risk of fraud. To balance the “strong interest” of ballot access with the “‘compelling interest in preserving the integrity of [the] election process,’” Purcell, 549 U. S., at 4, many States have expanded mail-in ballots but sought to deter fraud — and create mechanisms to detect it — by requiring voters to return ballots in signed, dated secrecy envelopes. Some States also require witness or notary signatures. Tallying these ballots tends to be more labor intensive, involves a high degree of subjective judgment(e.g., verifying signatures), and typically leads to a far higher rate of ballot challenges and rejections. Litigation over these ballots can require substantial discovery and labor-intensive fact review. In some cases, it might require sifting through hundreds of thousands or millions of ballots. It also may require subjective judgment calls about the validity of thousands of ballots. Judicial review in this situation is difficult enough even when the rules are clear and the number of challenged ballots small. Adding a dispute about who can set or change the rules greatly exacerbates the problem. Third, and perhaps most significant, post-election litigation sometimes forces courts to make policy decisions that they have no business making. For example, when an official has improperly changed the rules, but voters have already relied on that change, courts must choose between potentially disenfranchising a subset of voters and enforcing the election provisions — such as receipt deadlines — that the legislature believes are necessary for election integrity. That occurred last year. After a court wrongly altered South Carolina’s witness requirement for absentee ballots, this Court largely reinstated the original rule, but declined to apply it to ballots already cast. Andino v. Middleton, ante, p. ___. Settling rules well in advance of an election rather than relying on post-election litigation ensures that courts are not put in that untenable position. In short, the post-election system of judicial review is at most suitable for garden-variety disputes. It generally cannot restore the state of affairs before an election. And it is often incapable of testing allegations of systemic maladministration, voter suppression, or fraud that go to the heart of public confidence in election results. That is obviously problematic for allegations backed by substantial evidence. But the same is true where allegations are incorrect. After all, “[c]onfidence in the integrity of our electoral process is es-sential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.” Purcell, supra, at 4; cf. McCutcheon v. Federal Election Comm’n, 572 U. S. 185, 191, 206–207 (2014) (plurality opinion) (identifying a compelling interest in rooting out the mere “appearance of corruption” in the political process). An incorrect allegation, left to fester without a robust mechanism to test and disprove it, “drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government.” Purcell, supra, at 4.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022221zor_2cp3.pdf

Thomas goes on at length regarding the need for the Supreme Court to take up the decision about who can change election rules, and when can they be changed. Interestingly, this isn't the first time these questions have been addressed or studied, especially with regard to mail-in voting, as the extensive cites indicate.

So a clear federal LEGAL standard for who can change voting rules, and when can they be changed, would be a fundamental step in promoting election confidence.

But that still leaves the legitimacy of the 2020 vote in doubt.

For the election result to be clear and unambiguous, a post-election study - especially statistical analysis - by a non-partisan, non-government organization with expertise - like the CalTech/ MIT Vote Project for example - would be needed.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021 6:26 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Meanwhile, I would hope THIS lawsuit goes to a public conclusion rather than private settlement. There's a lot to unpack here, including private censorship of public political opinion. But if Mike Lindell has 'all the evidence' of a rigged election that he claims to have, it would be a welcome treasure-trove of information.

Quote:
"I Have All The Evidence On Them": MyPillow CEO Lindell Welcomes $1.3 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Monday, Feb 22, 2021 - 18:20

Dominion Voting Systems is suing Trump supporter Mike Lindell and his company, MyPillow, for $1.3 billion, after the Minnesota-based CEO accused the company of rigging the election for President Biden.

The suit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, in which Dominion claims that Lindell's statements, social media posts, and a two-hour film he helped produce are false, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"Despite repeated warnings and efforts to share the facts with him, Mr. Lindell has continued to maliciously spread false claims about Dominion, each time giving empty assurances that he would come forward with overwhelming proof," said Dominion CEO John Poulos in a Monday statement to reporters.

Dominion alleges that Lindell knew that 'no credible evidence' supported his claims about election integrity, writing in the complaint: "He is well aware of the independent audits and paper ballot recounts conclusively disproving the Big Lie," adding "But Lindell…sells the lie to this day because the lie sells pillows."

Actually, Lindell's activism has resulted in more than a handful of major retailers dropping his products altogether.

Lindell welcomes the lawsuit, saying in a Monday interview: "I have all the evidence on them," adding "Now this will get disclosed faster, all the machine fraud and the attack on our country."

Dominion’s lawsuit accuses Mr. Lindell of repeatedly and falsely alleging that algorithms in Dominion’s voting machines had stolen votes from Mr. Trump. It said he had undertaken a marketing campaign for the pillow company based on his support for Mr. Trump and the former president’s claims that the election had been stolen from him.

Dominion says the allegations by Mr. Lindell and others have irreparably damaged its reputation, jeopardized its contracts with state and local governments, and prompted death threats and harassment against employees. The company says it supplies election equipment used by more than 40% of U.S. voters. -Wall Street Journal

Last month, Dominion filed lawsuits against Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trujmp attorney Sidney Powell. Giuliani has said he will use the lawsuit to continue investigating Dominion, and claims the suit is an attempt to censor him. Powell says she hasn't published any statements she knew to be false, and that she has credible evidence.

Beyond that, Dominion has sent letters to multiple media outlets over their coverage - which ostensibly caused a Newsmax anchor to storm off the set of an interview with Lindell earlier this month.

Newsmax just censored Mike Lindell.

I’m done with @newsmax pic.twitter.com/aDKRBiRLGI
— Art TakingBack ???? (@ArtValley_818) February 3, 2021

Meanwhile, voting company Smartmatic USA Corp has similarly sued Fox News for $2.7 billion in damages for what they claim were defamatory on-air comments.

In January, Twitter suspended Lindell for violating their 'civic integrity' policy.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2021 3:47 PM