Winning the election - after winning the election.

Never seen an election where the judiciary, either in states, or the federal would be playing such a vital role. We do not know which republican lawsuits in which states will win the day, let alone how many ballots or 'ballot denials' those specific cases will include. Maybe Trump's victories in his challenges will impact 300 votes in two states. Maybe they will impact thousands or tens of thousands of votes across the country. When a ballot is excluded because of process issues, all the votes cast on that ballot are excluded including votes for Senator, Congressman, Governor, District court judge, State Treasurer, and Water commissioner - and then there is all those measures.

That's why this is still unpredictable despite the polling. That's also why a lot of potential litigants with standing to sue will have a motive to sue, other than Donald Trump and writing amicus briefs for each other. We have to overwhelm all over the country, in every jurisdiction, regardless of ballot, or process. And we had better be willing to reach into our pockets to donate to fund our own legal challenges. The DNC and local democratic party branches do not have the money to pay for top legal representation for all these appeals, just sitting around. Most of it is being spent to win hearts and minds.

We'll know in 4 years who won.
Just in time for 2024's election.

G-D

btthegreat said:

Never seen an election where the judiciary, either in states, or the federal would be playing such a vital role. We do not know which republican lawsuits in which states will win the day, let alone how many ballots or 'ballot denials' those specific cases will include. Maybe Trump's victories in his challenges will impact 300 votes in two states. Maybe they will impact thousands or tens of thousands of votes across the country. When a ballot is excluded because of process issues, all the votes cast on that ballot are excluded including votes for Senator, Congressman, Governor, District court judge, State Treasurer, and Water commissioner - and then there is all those measures.

That's why this is still unpredictable despite the polling. That's also why a lot of potential litigants with standing to sue will have a motive to sue, other than Donald Trump and writing amicus briefs for each other. We have to overwhelm all over the country, in every jurisdiction, regardless of ballot, or process. And we had better be willing to reach into our pockets to donate to fund our own legal challenges. The DNC and local democratic party branches do not have the money to pay for top legal representation for all these appeals, just sitting around. Most of it is being spent to win hearts and minds.

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Although we have already seen more litigation than in past presidential elections this year, most of these races will be wrapped up quickly including the presidential race. The DNC has PLENTY of money for legal representation as many of the attorney for the DNC pursue these cases pro-bono.

There are incentives at both the state and federal to wrap these cases up quickly so judges will act fast. Federal and state laws are clear on when terms for existing politicians end and legal challenges won't allow someone who lost to continue to serve beyond the final date of their term.

btthegreat said:

Never seen an election where the judiciary, either in states, or the federal would be playing such a vital role.

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This is not true about the presidential race. George Bush was literally given the presidency by five SCOTUS justices who put their party over democracy after suing opponent Al Gore in Tallahassee. Instead of doing the only thing that makes sense - a runoff election with paper ballots - Secretary of State Katherine Harris made it all about politics since she voted for the Republican governor's brother. It took five weeks to do what she wanted - certify Bush as the next POTUS. She was just waiting for conservative judges to agree with her and make everyone stop counting flawed ballots votes in Palm Beach County.

Of course we are not going to have a similar situation again with the type of in-person ballot causing problems in a single county, It will be totally different. But what the rattlesnake wants judges to do is pretend mail-in ballots should not be counted. In that sense we will likely see a repeat of 2000.

Blue Donkey said:

This is not true about the presidential race. George Bush was literally given the presidency by five SCOTUS justices who put their party over democracy after suing opponent Al Gore in Tallahassee. Instead of doing the only thing that makes sense - a runoff election with paper ballots - Secretary of State Katherine Harris made it all about politics since she voted for the Republican governor's brother. It took five weeks to do what she wanted - certify Bush as the next POTUS. She was just waiting for conservative judges to agree with her and make everyone stop counting flawed ballots votes in Palm Beach County.

Of course we are not going to have a similar situation again with the type of in-person ballot causing problems in a single county, It will be totally different. But what the rattlesnake wants judges to do is pretend mail-in ballots should not be counted. In that sense we will likely see a repeat of 2000.

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well these challenges will not be limited to Florida or the Presidential race.. They will be everywhere and I think most of them will revolve around this question. Did any changes in the rules, or the system, or the time frames secondary to this pandemic have sufficient legal sanction by legislatures. In other words, did county election commissioners, or the state election board have the authority to make whatever revisions they may have made within the statutes, or did they exceed their authority under those statutes. If they saw a problem that they could not handle under the current statutes, did anyone bother to call a special legislative session and allow for the remedy the relevant state constitution proscribed for emergency situations. The lawsuit will be about the process that got us access to the ballot, not the ballot itself, but the result of a conservative ruling will be the tossing of the ballots.

btthegreat said:

Well these challenges will not be limited to Florida or the Presidential race. They will be everywhere and I think most of them will revolve around this question. Did any changes in the rules, or the system, or the time frames secondary to this pandemic have sufficient legal sanction by legislatures. In other words, did county election commissioners, or the state election board have the authority to make whatever revisions they may have made within the statutes, or did they exceed their authority under those statutes. If they saw a problem that they could not handle under the current statutes, did anyone bother to call a special legislative session and allow for the remedy the relevant state constitution proscribed for emergency situations. The lawsuit will be about the process that got us access to the ballot, not the ballot itself, but the result of a conservative ruling will be the tossing of the ballots.

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Legislators can't get involved. That would be changing the rules after the fact. Judges can only decide which election laws are or were violated, if any, and how to proceed based on what is currently legal. In Bush vs. Gore, the problem was there were no rules to handle the situation because it was unprecedented. Secretary of State Katherine Harris was forced to make up rules as she went. This time decades of absentee voting prevent the Donald Trump campaign from making excuses because we all know it works almost perfectly in the Pacific Northwest.

Rule changes unrelated to the pandemic do not exist. COVID-19 is the only reason millions of voters nationwide did their American duty via mailboxes instead of at polling places. Absentee ballots still have the same old format. The only question is how much longer the counting process will take in each county and district because it is mathematically impossible to count all of them by 11:00 ET on November 3. Obviously Republicans are just trying to pretend voter fraud is rampant to cheat their way to undeserved wins, expecting the Democrats to get more votes in their races. Democrats OTOH look at this situation objectively and carefully evaluate the causes of legitimate voter fraud that can affect who wins each race, starting at the top. Any lawsuit with the rattlesnake's name on it is just cheating.

Blue Donkey said:

Legislators can't get involved. That would be changing the rules after the fact. Judges can only decide which election laws are or were violated, if any, and how to proceed based on what is currently legal. In Bush vs. Gore, the problem was there were no rules to handle the situation because it was unprecedented. Secretary of State Katherine Harris was forced to make up rules as she went. This time decades of absentee voting prevent the Donald Trump campaign from making excuses because we all know it works almost perfectly in the Pacific Northwest.

Rule changes unrelated to the pandemic do not exist. COVID-19 is the only reason millions of voters nationwide did their American duty via mailboxes instead of at polling places. Absentee ballots still have the same old format. The only question is how much longer the counting process will take in each county and district because it is mathematically impossible to count all of them by 11:00 ET on November 3. Obviously Republicans are just trying to pretend voter fraud is rampant to cheat their way to undeserved wins, expecting the Democrats to get more votes in their races. Democrats OTOH look at this situation objectively and carefully evaluate the causes of legitimate voter fraud that can affect who wins each race, starting at the top. Any lawsuit with the rattlesnake's name on it is just cheating.

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First I am on your team here but, in deciding if a given 'election law' has been broken, courts interpret the election laws passed by the legislative branch. How much discretion administrative agencies in the executive branch are given via those statutes is going to be important if they are 'tweaking' number of polling stations , the hours of those polling stations, how to handle the 'maskless voters', how to handle social distancing guidelines in those lines outside, who gets those mail- in ballots automatically, who has to call first, how early they get sent, and how much time there will be to count them etc etc.
If a statute is written describing how the elections division in a given state or county is supposed to run an election, and describing how much discretion it is allowed as an agency, then the ONLY institution that can broaden that discretion, is the institution that confined it via its own statute. The reason legislatures get called into special /emergency session, is to handle matters that come up between regular sessions that cannot wait. You may not see a problem with any of this, but I am betting lawyers will very carefully at process issues. If those administrators at the county and state level, were consistently very careful in their decision-making scope, never reaching an inch too high or an inch too far to accomplish practical goals they never envisioned having, you will be right.

I just think any problems that come up will be created by Republicans working for Donald Trump whether Democrats have anything to be concerned about or not. Mail-in voter fraud may be worse than we expected but the publicly known dishonest motive is unjustified.

btthegreat said:

Never seen an election where the judiciary, either in states, or the federal would be playing such a vital role. We do not know which republican lawsuits in which states will win the day, let alone how many ballots or 'ballot denials' those specific cases will include. Maybe Trump's victories in his challenges will impact 300 votes in two states. Maybe they will impact thousands or tens of thousands of votes across the country. When a ballot is excluded because of process issues, all the votes cast on that ballot are excluded including votes for Senator, Congressman, Governor, District court judge, State Treasurer, and Water commissioner - and then there is all those measures.

That's why this is still unpredictable despite the polling. That's also why a lot of potential litigants with standing to sue will have a motive to sue, other than Donald Trump and writing amicus briefs for each other. We have to overwhelm all over the country, in every jurisdiction, regardless of ballot, or process. And we had better be willing to reach into our pockets to donate to fund our own legal challenges. The DNC and local democratic party branches do not have the money to pay for top legal representation for all these appeals, just sitting around. Most of it is being spent to win hearts and minds.

Click to expand...

I think the judiciary will come into play solely over mail in votes. In the primaries an ungodly amount of ballots were rejected by states rules over incorrect filling out of ballots, I imagine with most states keping the same rules, and given the results of primary mail in ballots, it is easy to assume 3-5 million mail in ballots might be rejected across the nation for things like no signature or improperly filling them out.

I can imagine it likely will come down to a legal battle of whether those improperly fill out ballots should be added to the total or not. This is why people should have chosen early in person voting over mail in ballots, Liberal states like new york threw out an epic amount of ballots during the primary, it is possible trump could win a landslide just through ballots being tossed, just due to the rules states have already enacted and the unwillingness of voters to research the rules before they vote by mail.

beerftw said:

I think the judiciary will come into play solely over mail in votes. In the primaries an ungodly amount of ballots were rejected by states rules over incorrect filling out of ballots, I imagine with most states keping the same rules, and given the results of primary mail in ballots, it is easy to assume 3-5 million mail in ballots might be rejected across the nation for things like no signature or improperly filling them out.

I can imagine it likely will come down to a legal battle of whether those improperly fill out ballots should be added to the total or not. This is why people should have chosen early in person voting over mail in ballots, Liberal states like new york threw out an epic amount of ballots during the primary, it is possible trump could win a landslide just through ballots being tossed, just due to the rules states have already enacted and the unwillingness of voters to research the rules before they vote by mail.

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Every state has a set of rules and precedents for absentee balloting, mail in balloting for decades. There have been 'improperly filled out ballots' all along. We will discover if how they are handled this time is consistent with past precedent, and whether those precedents were proscribed through legislative statutory power, or administrative rule - or the wild guesswork of some poor schmucks at a local election board who could not get a straight answer on the friggin phone from the state elections commission or the county legal dept.

beerftw said:

I think the judiciary will come into play solely over mail in votes. In the primaries an ungodly amount of ballots were rejected by states rules over incorrect filling out of ballots, I imagine with most states keping the same rules, and given the results of primary mail in ballots, it is easy to assume 3-5 million mail in ballots might be rejected across the nation for things like no signature or improperly filling them out.

I can imagine it likely will come down to a legal battle of whether those improperly fill out ballots should be added to the total or not. This is why people should have chosen early in person voting over mail in ballots, Liberal states like new york threw out an epic amount of ballots during the primary, it is possible trump could win a landslide just through ballots being tossed, just due to the rules states have already enacted and the unwillingness of voters to research the rules before they vote by mail.

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You know why people are filling out mail-in ballots, right? I am sure everyone knows the reason: to avoid picking up the coronavirus. Social distancing is impossible when there are lines and even with mail-in voting, polling places have long lines. Not all voting places are big enough to give voters 6 feet of space even if the lines are short. Maybe you forgot the controversy about Wisconsin not postponing its primary election despite fears people can die just by voting, which was national news. There is no reason to vote in person instead of with a mailed ballot if your polling place is like mine, which fits the above description.

Blue Donkey said:

You know why people are filling out mail-in ballots, right? I am sure everyone knows the reason: to avoid picking up the coronavirus. Social distancing is impossible when there are lines and even with mail-in voting, polling places have long lines. Not all voting places are big enough to give voters 6 feet of space even if the lines are short. Maybe you forgot the controversy about Wisconsin not postponing its primary election despite fears people can die just by voting, which was national news. There is no reason to vote in person instead of with a mailed ballot if your polling place is like mine, which fits the above description.

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But how many ballots were thrown out over errors that never would have occured with in person voting? In 23 states just in democrat primaries over 500k votes were tossed over varying rules, even in liberal states like new york, considering mail in voting has expanded since then, and it will be a general election not a single party primary, it is possible anywhere from 1-5 million votes get tossed out for mail in ballots, essentially enough to overturn an entire election just going by rules already set.

If the dnc really wanted to push mail in ballots they should have pushed a campaign to ensure voters were educated on the proper way to fill them out based on their state laws, and too many were already tossed out in minor elections for not following the rules. Each state has their own criteria on what invalidates a mail in ballot so things could get very messy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...7fbe92-db3d-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html

Wapo points out 60k in mi pa and wi for just a primary, in states that trump won by about 80k votes, so in a general election it is very easy mail in voting can doom the democratic party by putting such a heavy reliance on it over traditional voting.

btthegreat said:

Every state has a set of rules and precedents for absentee balloting, mail in balloting for decades. There have been 'improperly filled out ballots' all along. We will discover if how they are handled this time is consistent with past precedent, and whether those precedents were proscribed through legislative statutory power, or administrative rule - or the wild guesswork of some poor schmucks at a local election board who could not get a straight answer on the friggin phone from the state elections commission or the county legal dept.

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In the past mail in voting was usually for absentee ballots, I think the big thing that screwed them was the push for voting by mail, for citizens who mostly have never voted by mail, and campaigns and states doing nothing to educate these new vote by mail voters how to properly fill them out.

beerftw said:

But how many ballots were thrown out over errors that never would have occurred with in person voting? In 23 states just in Democrat primaries over 500k votes were tossed over varying rules, even in liberal states like new york, considering mail in voting has expanded since then, and it will be a general election not a single party primary. It is possible anywhere from 1-5 million votes get tossed out for mail-in ballots, essentially enough to overturn an entire election just going by rules already set.

If the DNC really wanted to push mail in ballots they should have pushed a campaign to ensure voters were educated on the proper way to fill them out based on their state laws. Too many were already tossed out in minor elections for not following the rules. Each state has their own criteria on what invalidates a mail-in ballot so things could get very messy.

The Washington Post points out 60k in mi pa and wi for just a primary, in states that trump won by about 80k votes, so in a general election it is very easy mail in voting can doom the democratic party by putting such a heavy reliance on it over traditional voting.

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The instructions for how to fill out the ballot are enclosed. The signature instructions are on above the box to write in. Filling in the ovals next to names or issue choices can be hard, but not writing signatures and dates.

Blue Donkey said:

The instructions for how to fill out the ballot are enclosed. The signature instructions are on above the box to write in. Filling in the ovals next to names or issue choices can be hard, but not writing signatures and dates.

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That is voter suppression, you know voters ain't smart enough to read it needs to be told to them in a tv commercial or on youtube. Clearly if voters were that smart we would not have so many thrown out.