Voter suppresion/"stealing the election" megathread

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/chucklindell/status/1321517036309270533
 oh good they still want my ballot invalidated

When will we know if this was successful or not?

I assume it wont be successful because the Texas SCOTUS has already slammed down other attempts to end drive up ballot drop off. 

[BudgieForce]

Hopefully they wont be close.

[BudgieForce]

Hopefully theres not a large quantity of ballots left to be processed through the post office.

[BudgieForce]

Hopefully theres not a large quantity of ballots left to be processed through the post office.

I checked some states mail vote statistics:

PA has 121k more outstanding D ballots than R ballots
MI is at 80% returned (no party breakdown )
WI is at 87% returned (no party breakdown)

Anybody want to take a stab at whether or not this is going to be enough to flip the states?

Your assuming those outstanding ballots were ever mailed back. For example, my sister got a mail in ballot but voted in person.

[BudgieForce]

Federal court ruling is tomorrow.

Which court?

Appeals court I think.

How are they likely to rule?

Andrew Hanen, the judge overseeing this case, is famous for ruling against the Obama administration on DACA. People are concerned because they think he's a republican partisan who would rule to help republicans.

However, he's also a George W. Bush appointee whose been on the bench since 2002. And I cant find much about any of his rulings going against the Texas Supreme Court. He might be a hardliner on immigration and a normal republican judge on everything else.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/1323337823257350145

Not the worst result in the world if this is true.

[BudgieForce]

Is it true that there have been more votes turned in in Michigan than registered voters?

Obviously not.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1325921392928370690

Too bad that they don't get a say in any of that.

That and also an audit wouldn't be an effective way of finding election fraud.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1325921392928370690

Everybody who denied this would happen is complicit

Read above

Except they can still block certification of the results.

They cannot.

https://twitter.com/JohnFetterman/status/1325931564044312579

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/nancykaffer/status/1328834950456553479?s=20
The board is deadlocked 2-2. The (Republican, obviously) chair said she’d consider certifying the results in areas besides Detroit. So brazen.

What is the endgame here?  What does this decision do and who can it be appealed to?

All it can do is delay the county's certification by a few days.  If they don't certify by their deadline, the state bureau of elections will take over and certify the county's results.

Don't Democratic and Republican members have to agree to certify at the state level?  What if the Republican members refuse there, too?

Litigation.

Some Republicans are under the impression that the state legislature would then be free to appoint their own electors. But more likely, they'll be lawsuits that would force certification before that.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/mateagold/status/1329573937995542536

We knew Shinkle would probably vote against certification. The other republican is a Rick Snyder appointment though, so I hope he's atleast somewhat less Trumpy.

Edit: Although it doesn't say that he will vote against certification. And the SoS has promised to do an audit. The problem is, she doesn't have the power to perform an audit until after certification.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/mateagold/status/1329573937995542536

We knew Shinkle would probably vote against certification. The other republican is a Rick Snyder appointment though, so I hope he's atleast somewhat less Trumpy.

Sounds like MI is going down the "no certification, send to house/let state legislature decide" route.

Probably not. There are three ways this can go before the state legislature could possibly get involved.

Litigation - Force the state board to certify or face consequences.

Executive power - Whitmer has the authority to remove a State board member and replace them with a temporary pick.

Secretary of State - The Bureau of Elections, run by the SoS, can certify.

[BudgieForce]

Perhaps a turning point.

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1329629701447573504

Thank you Romney for being a sane person!

Indeed. Romney has proven that he is an honorable Republican.

It actually could be important that Romney made this statement in the situation where MI/WI/PA submit competing slates of electors. When the electoral votes are counted on Jan. 6, if both the House and Senate can agree on which electors are valid, then those are counted. Dems have 48 Senators in the next Senate. Romney is 49. I'm not sure how the Georgia seats work in this calculation with the runoff elections happening the previous day, let's assume Loeffler is still sitting and Purdue's seat is vacant. Then Dems need just one more senator, probably Collins or Murkowski, to side with them, and this would basically guarantee that the "state legislature coup" would fail.

I think there's a small chance Collins is salty after Democrats spent so much money against her, but I have a hard time seeing Lisa Murkowski not voting with the Democrats in this case, especially if American Democracy is at stake.

Collins might be salty, but she knows she won because Maine Democrats voted for both her and Biden. I've also been under the impression that Biden and Collins have some mutual respect for one another. Not only did Biden and Collins serve in the Senate together for over a decade but Biden also never actively campaigned against her.

Probably more importantly, Collins will be one of the most influential and powerful senators in a Biden presidency. She's probably very happy going back to being the moderate New England swing voter like during the Obama years. I'd even wager there's a good chance Collins herself voted for Biden, although she probably voted third party.

[BudgieForce]

It's like these court challenges never end. You'd think courts would have a system in place to prevent similar cases from being heard multiple times.

[BudgieForce]

Trump loses at the Supreme Court, 9-0, no dissents:

https://twitter.com/scotusreporter/status/1336425805409361921?s=20

I might cry.

edit: In a good way.

[BudgieForce]

You gotta love the MAGA response.

Since the Texas case is now on the docket, it means that the SCOTUS will just overturn the election through that case, not this one.

Ignoring the fact that being on the docket only means someone filed the right paperwork, not that the court will actually agree to hear anything.

[BudgieForce]

You gotta love the MAGA response.

Since the Texas case is now on the docket, it means that the SCOTUS will just overturn the election through that case, not this one.

Ignoring the fact that being on the docket only means someone filed the right paperwork, not that the court will actually agree to hear anything.

Yeah, they are dismissing this loss because it will obviously be the Texas case that does it! Duh!

It's so dumb. The case that just got smacked down was on the docket for Christ's sake.

[BudgieForce]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ShannonBream/status/1336448932189265920

PA had to respond in today's case too. Seems like a formality.

[BudgieForce]

The AZ Supreme Court is all republican appointments too.

[BudgieForce]

Adam Klasfeld (https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports) is live-tweeting the hearing for the current Wisconsin case.  It's a rather fun read.

The judge asked a few questions about jurisdiction but seemed very skeptical on the Trump teams argument.

Sounds like this case either gets tossed because of Jurisdiction or Laches.

[BudgieForce]

Welp, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court is operating as horrifically as one can imagine:

https://twitter.com/patrickdmarley/status/1337836224803954688?s=20

Hagedorn has repeatably stated he doesn't support throwing votes out. The other conservatives besides Roggensack have also made similar comments. Hopefully they continue to hold that belief.

[BudgieForce]

Hagedorn has been openly appalled by the way the Trump campaign has conducted itself post-election. It'll be at least 4-3 to uphold Wisconsin's vote, hopefully more.

I honestly don't think he'll side with Trump either, but it's kind of scary how the 3 other conservatives seem willing to entertain the idea. 

[BudgieForce]

Didn’t this get struck down???

The Wisconsin case? It got remanded to a lower court after WISC denied original jurisdiction 4-3. Now it's been appealed back to WISC and will almost certainly fail 4-3 again. I'd be more concerned if Hagedorn hadn't had some of the most scathing things to say about Team Trump's behavior of any judge in the country in his concurrence the last time it was in front of them.

Do yk when we will know?

The judges will meet to discuss in about half an hour. We might know by tonight.

The Biden camp is also asking for a ruling before Monday since that's when the electoral college votes.

[BudgieForce]

Potentially positive news:

https://twitter.com/SJohnsonWPR/status/1337848986368176128/photo/1