“Appellees concede that laches may not bar a constitutional challenge to the substance of a statute.“ //

the Governor and State of Pennsylvania just argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Kelly case, and the Supreme Court agreed, that laches should bar a constitutional challenge to the substance of a statute. That is the exact opposite of what the Governor and State “conceded” 22 years ago. So much for legal and political ethics. //

The voters of Pennsylvania are given a meaningful and necessary role in amending their State’s constitution. A vote of a majority of the electors in a general election is the required final step to adoption of such amendments. The Defendants in the Kelly complaint deprived the Electors of their right to validate the proposed amendment passed by the General Assembly, and they put the amendment in place without their approval.

That was “disenfranchisement” of the Pennsylvania electorate. Who is to say that Pennsylvania voters might have rejected “no excuse” mail-in balloting if not for being disenfranchised.

State legislatures should initiate and oversee their own election audit. Anything less will leave half of America questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
By Margot Cleveland

Earlier on Saturday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a short decision ordering dismissal of the complaint filed by Congressman Mike Kelly and seven others challenging the legality of “no excuse” mail-in voting adopted by the Pennsylvania Legislature. The complaint alleged that such a system violated express provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which require in-person voting subject only to very limited exceptions for “absent electors” within four very narrow classes.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did not address the merits of the allegations. It dismissed the complaint solely on the equitable doctrine of “laches,” which can be applied when one party to a dispute is seen by the Court as having “sat on its rights” with regard to a legal claim, and the opposing party would be unfairly injured to allow the party asserting its rights to prevail after having failed to act when it was first aware of the claim. //

But here are a couple questions to consider when taking into account of the language used by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court:

The defendants and allegedly bad actors in the allegations of the Complaint are Pennsylvania state officials. How are they injured here?

What does the application of the “doctrine of laches” do to vindicate their interest?

What interests do they have in operating a facially invalid election scheme?

What interests do the voters of Pennsylvania have in maintaining a facially unconstitutional voting scheme?

And, as the Chief Justice of the Court made clear in his partial concurrence and partial dissent:

“laches and prejudice can never be permitted to amend the Constitution.” Sprague v. Casey, 520 Pa. 38, 47, 550 A.2d 184, 188 (1988) //

DaveM_2
2 hours ago edited
Another case of circular reasoning. Prior to this election you could not sue because you could not show harm. Today after you have been harmed you cant sue because you didn't previously sue.

The decision before the court was described this way by SCOTUS Blog:

(1) Whether the provisions of Executive Order 202.68 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) that limit in-person “house of worship” attendance to 10 or 25 people, but allow numerous secular businesses to operate without any capacity restrictions, violate the free exercise clause; and (2) whether the courts below erred in concluding that Jacobson v. Massachusetts and South Bay Pentecostal Church v. Newsom require the application of a deferential, rational-basis review in all cases challenging government action taken in response to a public health emergency, even when fundamental rights such as free exercise are at stake. //

Cuomo’s argument for lockdowns before SCOTUS provided no evidence that religious gatherings were actually spreading the disease.

civil truth
2 hours ago
It was clear that the Democrats were going to employ all means necessary to win the election. Why Trump could not put together a disciplined team to monitor and later to contest the election will probably have to wait for the books and "insider" leaks, but I suspect it was a combination of Trump being a mercurial employer who is quick to turn against people working for him scaring people away coupled with a desire not to be the target of retribution from the Deep State and the cancel culture and threats from the media and various shadow groups.

And also not wanting to be at Ground Zero if we end up with a Biden/Harris administration.

Justice Gorsuch comes roaring out by taking a flamethrower to the Chief Justice — not on just one issue but on two. To me, his language borders on intemperate and likely to leave a mark on the relationship between the two. I agree with Gorsuch on the merits of his points, but I’m still a bit taken aback by the force with which he advances them here on a petition for emergency relief. //

Why have some mistaken this Court’s modest decision in Jacobson for a towering authority that overshadows the Constitution during a pandemic? In the end, I can only surmise that much of the answer lies in a particular judicial impulse to stay out of the way in times of crisis. But if that impulse may be understandable or even admirable in other circumstances, we may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.

As someone who has read a lot of Supreme Court cases over more than three decades, this is close to “blow torch and pliers” territory between two Justices ostensibly aligned from a jurisprudential point of view. This five-vote majority — not coming from a case before the Court but rather in response to an emergency petition — changes everything now pending in lower courts regarding coming challenges to lock-down orders that may be imposed by governors in the days and weeks ahead.

Do not overlook Gorsuch’s view that “shelter-in-place” orders are an “attack” on the Constitution. This is a religious liberty case, but the overt hostility of Justice Gorsuch is revealing, and I suspect it is going to extend to other burdens imposed on individual liberties by the orders.

Sidney Powell made good on her promise to file an astonishing lawsuit on Wednesday night.

On behalf of several Republican Presidential Electors, Powell — joined as Plaintiffs’ counsel by famed Atlanta trial attorney Lin Wood — filed a 104-page complaint

The complaint alleges that various uncontrolled and open parts of the software architecture are designed so that real-time activity logs can be modified to delete activity involving vote switching and/or addition/subtraction from the accumulated vote totals in such a way that the activity would not appear on the activity logs as part of an audit.

Philadelphia's top election official is warning that thousands of mail-in ballots could be thrown out in November unless changes are made to rules around "secrecy envelopes" -- second sleeves that help prevent poll workers from seeing how someone voted.

The Pennsylvania Supreme court ruled last Friday that officials can reject so-called naked ballots that are received without the secrecy envelope. State election officials had previously provided guidance telling counties to count naked ballots.

Based on error rates in previous elections, that could mean more than 100,000 mail-in ballots are at risk, according to Philadelphia city commissioner Lisa Deeley.

Deeley wrote a letter Monday to Republican state House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Republican state Senate President Joseph Scarnati, calling for urgent legislative action to eliminate the secrecy sleeve requirement.
She argued that the requirement could cause the state to be the "subject of significant post-election legal controversy, the likes of which we have not seen since Florida in 2000." //

Cutler spokesman Mike Straub said there's no plan to change the requirement.
"The Supreme Court was very, very clear in their ruling that the secrecy envelopes served an important purpose in ensuring the confidentiality of every ballot," said Straub. "The court has really made that official. We really don't have any plans to take that up again."

In its first court victory, a Nevada judge has agreed to let the Trump campaign present its evidence that fraud and illegalities plagued the state’s election, enough to reverse Joe Biden's win and set an example for other state challenges.

According to Trump officials, the judge set a Dec. 3 hearing date and is allowing 15 depositions. What’s more, the campaign plans to present its evidence that could result in the rejection of tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Democratic Clark County where Biden ballots outnumbered Trump ballots by 91,000 in unofficial results. //

But its biggest claim was that the signatures on hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots were not verified by human officials, as required by law.

What’s more, they found that officials used a machine to verify signatures, apparently against the rules, and even those machines were plagued with problems.

Mail-in Ballots in Pennsylvania Were Rejected for Technical Errors at a Suspiciously Low Rate in Some Key Counties
By Shipwreckedcrew | Nov 23, 2020 8:15 PM ET

AP Photo/Julio Cortez
I have long suspected that this is the data that the Democrats wanted to keep buried long enough for some of the early lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania to burn themselves out over a lack of available evidence. That is often a problem with “election fraud” claims — most/all the evidence needed to prove the claim rests in the hands of the state officials who you are suing. Their refusal to provide data and evidence leads to the formation of conclusion that the allegations of fraud are untrue when the actual problem is that the state is keeping the evidence of fraud under wraps to protect the outcome.

This is some of the data that the Trump campaign asked for in the misguided suit brought two weeks ago in the Middle District of Pennsylvania against the Secretary of the Commonwealth and seven heavy Democrat Counties. The campaign sent interrogatories asking the following four questions and seeking a Court order that the Defendants be compelled to provide answers to the questions on an expedited basis:

County Defendants: How many mail-in ballots and absentee ballots were
counted and how many were invalidated? How many secrecy ballots were
received?
County Defendants: How many mail-in and absentee ballots lacking a signature,
lacking an inner secrecy envelope, or otherwise defective were “cured” by a
provisional ballot after you or your agents contacted a voter to inform them of the
defect in their ballot?
Secretary: When did the Secretary of State’s office become aware that the
County Election Board defendants were, prior to the election, engaged in
inspection of mail-in and/or absentee ballots and communicating to voters where
such ballots were deemed defective?
Secretary: Describe how you became aware that the County Election Board
defendants were, prior to the election, engaged in inspection of mail-in and/or
absentee ballots and communicating to voters where such ballots were deemed
defective and all steps you took to ensure that uniform procedures were being
followed throughout the State.
The spreadsheet linked is on John Solomon’s website JustTheNews. It does not state where the source data came from, and some of the numbers do not coincide with the information I’ve seen elsewhere — but I have no reason to believe one set of numbers over another.

Today, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court may have answered some of these questions, as it upheld the decision of many County Boards of Election to count mail-in ballots that had technical errors in the manner in which the voter completed the information called for on the outside of the mailing envelope. So, for example, the Trump campaign was challenging the decision of the Philadephia County Board of Elections to count 8,329 ballots with such errors, rather than reject them and not include them in the vote tally. According to Solomon’s spreadsheet, Philadelphia County rejected only 228 ballots TOTAL, while counting over 8,300 ballots with some defect. In its ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said it was acceptable for the County Boards of Election to interpret the requirements in a fashion that favored counting the votes of lawfully registered voters even if their mail-in ballots had minor deficiencies.

But these minor deficiencies are different from the failure to include the inner security sleeve, which the Supreme Court has previously ruled were required for a vote to be validly counted.

Since Philadephia County received 346,196 mailed-in ballots, and only 288 were rejected, Philadelphia County should be able to show that it has 345,968 inner sleeve security sleeves, since every valid mail-in ballot must have arrived inside an inner security sleeve.

For some reason, I suspect that Philadephia County won’t be able to do that. //

A total of 450 were rejected ballots out of about 1.3 million mailed-in ballots received in those counties. That is a rejection rate of .0003%.

Such numbers are simply ludicrous and defy belief.

Appeals Courts — including the Supreme Court — do not generally take up matters without a factual record. You don’t call witnesses and take testimony in the Appeals Court or the Supreme Court. So if you want the Supreme Court to consider what witnesses have to say about what happened in the seven Pennsylvania Counties that have been named as defendants, that needs to happen in the district court where today’s hearing took place.

The ONLY goal today was to keep this case alive long enough to have the evidentiary hearing on the preliminary injunction that was scheduled to take place later in the week. Witnesses would have testified and been cross-examined under oath. But Judge Brann canceled that hearing today — which is not a good sign.

The argument today needed to be good enough to convince Brann to let that factual record be established BEFORE he dismisses the case on standing grounds — which I’m pretty sure he is going to do. That is actually what the Trump side wants because that pushes the case quicker out of the trial court and into the appeals courts, and an effort can be made to seek SCOTUS review immediately. This would be rare, but possible given that the clock is running on the inauguration date for the next president.

But, the case going forward to those other courts needs to have a factual record established as to WHAT HAPPENED in those Pennsylvania counties with regard to illegal pre-canvassing of ballots, and the use of that information to “cure” invalid ballots. At this point, the Trump Campaign has no hard factual data on how many ballots were involved. It needs to get that information from the defendants, and it is going to need the Court’s processes — subpoenas, an evidentiary hearing, and discovery — to get that information. //

Chris2
13 hours ago
Rudy made the standing arguments very well. Brann's question to Ds was that he didn't understand how Ps don't have standing; he said he didn't understand why this wrong did NOT have a remedy (according to them). Highlight of hearing was when Rudy pointed out co-counsel was plaintiff in 3rd circuit case that held candidate had standing. Rudy was very sharp - don't trust those who did NOT hear arguments attempt to rate Rudy. //

Chris2
13 hours ago
PS Brann invited Rudy to file a response to new motion to dismiss. He also said original motion to dismiss was MOOT - which was precisely what all Ds briefs had denied. That is, Brann dismissed the Ds main argument, explicitly & implicitly. He told Ds to file a reply brief - why? Didn't they already win? Reply briefs are optional, so why did Brann want one? //

"He who hath made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.
Heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that which will make us happy. One day we will restore the Sovereign, to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and beholds with a propitious eye his children assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self direction which HE bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, May his kingdom come. " -- Sam Adams

What these provisions amount to is an effort by Elias and the DNC to “prep the battlefield.” They know the DNC is preparing to engage in widespread efforts to dramatically increase the use of absentee ballots across the country to drive up Democrat party turnout in 2020 — this was the plan before COVID-19 fell into their lap as the perfect vehicle to justify “vote-by-mail.”

The goal was to create a system that was so onerous and burdensome that it worked as a disincentive to rejecting ballots based on mismatched signatures. The goal was to neutralize the “signature matching” requirement as a brake on fraudulent mail-in balloting.

Fraud and violations of the election code are two distinct problems, yet there has been little analysis of the latter, which might be more significant. //

Violations of the election code, however, are a different matter, and unfortunately, sometimes the public views election officials’ bending of the rules as a harmless ignoring of technicalities. //

That makes technical violations constitutionally significant because Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 grants state legislatures the ultimate authority to appoint the electors who choose the president: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.” //

So, if the legislative branch mandates voter signatures, or verification of signatures, or internal secrecy sleeves, or counting only in the presences of poll-watchers from each party, it is no answer to say it is a technicality and not fraud at issue. The state legislatures, through the election code, define the validity of votes, and allowing state officials or courts to read those provisions out of the law raises serious questions under Article 2 of the Constitution.

Jenna Ellis
@JennaEllisEsq
·
Nov 9, 2020
Replying to @JennaEllisEsq
➡️Dems egregious conduct, evidenced by sworn statements, is misconduct including ignoring legislative mandates concerning mail-in ballots which amounted to more than 2.6M of the approx 6.75M votes in PA.
➡️PA officials also mailing second unsolicited mail-in ballots to voters
Jenna Ellis
@JennaEllisEsq
Conclusion: Pennsylvania is irredeemably compromised.

Team Trump asking for an order prohibiting certification of results. //

The discussion about what types of fraud, and how much, is important because it goes to the very heart of election integrity, and our system cannot stand without trust in the outcome. That argument, however, won’t decide the Pennsylvania case from a legal standpoint. It will come down to whether a ministerial appointee of Pennsylvania’s executive branch can work with Pennsylvania’s judicial branch to subvert the expressed will of the legislature, and hastily put in place an election process wherein citizens who chose to vote differently had their votes disparately treated. //

For conservatives, an intellectual challenge now presents itself: If you were OK with the Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount in 2000, you need to prepare yourself to be comfortable with the same court invalidating the Pennsylvania electors. Indeed, you should want them to, whether or not there was underlying direct fraud sufficient enough to affect the outcome. Alternatively, you should start working on your tortuous rationale for why, on constitutional grounds, what was legitimate in 2000 is not legitimate in 2020.

Michigan GOP lawmakers are asking the secretary of state to issue a full audit of the general election votes before the state certifies the results.

Notice the common denominator in all those tweets? The assumption by these people is that only persons of color are doing the looting and rioting during the “protests.”

The other assumption is that black, Hispanic, and Asian people have not been victims of violent looting and rioting themselves.

As we’ve seen from the anarchistic riots that have happened in Democrat-run cities like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and others for the last several months, that is most definitely not the case. Black, Hispanic, and Asian-owned businesses have been targeted by “peaceful protesters” of all colors. Black law enforcement officers have specifically been singled out by violent Antifa-BLM rioters, and unfortunately in some instances, some of those officers have either suffered serious injuries or have died while serving in their communities to protect the very people who turn around and “thank” them for their service by injuring or murdering them in cold blood.

So no, there is no nefarious “racist” motivation for DeSantis to try and strengthen laws that will allow innocent law-abiding citizens to better protect themselves, their families, homes, and livelihoods if under dangerous threat from rioters hellbent on whipping up purge-like protest mobs.

What happened today, and what prompted Pilger to “quit” was that AG Barr said to US Attorneys – “If you have substantial allegations of election fraud in your district, you have authority to investigate that.” Basically, Barr cut Pilger and Election Crimes Branch out of the picture as “gatekeepers” to starting investigations in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Atlanta. //

I worked with Pilger… He was so arrogant and never let us pull the trigger on election fraud cases. He resigned because of this right here… Barr told “prosecutors they could take investigative steps such as interviewing witnesses during a period that they would normally need permission from the elections crimes section.” Before Barr’s annoucement, that permission came directly and solely from Pilger. He was arrogant and lazy… He lost the power today so now he’s walking. Good riddance.

Confronted with evidence (which they – and the rest of the world – would be welcome to examine), reminded of their duty to their constituents, and empowered by Article II Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, the legislators – particularly Republican legislators in the majority – will now have to make a decision.

1. Do nothing, and acquiesce to the blatant and open disenfranchisement of their constituents,
2. Order new elections with strong voter verification and ballot integrity measures,
3. Allocate the state’s slate of electors per Congressional District in the state (as done in ME and NE), or,
4. Discount the erring county’s tallies entirely and send a Republican slate of electors.

A Republic, if you can keep it, said Benjamin Franklin. That leaves no room for election theft.

Wayne County, Republican poll watchers were denied their legal right to monitor the election and purposely kept in the dark, both literally and figuratively. Election workers blocked windows and padlocked doors.

There are thousands of reports of poll watchers being intimidated and unable to do their job, and as of 4 pm this afternoon 131 affidavits have been completed just in Michigan, with over 2800 incident reports that have been submitted to us since Election Day.