A CASE BEYOND FRAUD
A development on the legal front in a case filed by the State of Texas offers the most hope of resolving the issue. And it does not rest on the claims of widespread fraud. On December 8, The Texas Tribune reported: “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing four battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — whose election results handed the White House to President-elect Joe Biden. In the suit, he claims that pandemic-era changes to election procedures in those states violated federal law and asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block the states from voting in the Electoral College.”[i] Following is the text of some of the legal complaint filed by the State of Texas.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1251(a) and this Court’s Rule 17, the State of Texas respectfully seeks leave to file the accompanying Bill of Complaint against the States of Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (collectively, the “Defendant States”) challenging their administration of the 2020 presidential election. As set forth in the accompanying brief and complaint, the 2020 election suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities in the Defendant States:
- Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of presidential electors.
- Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters – whether lawful or unlawful – in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of Defendant States.
- The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections in those States’ election laws.
All these flaws – even the violations of state election law – violate one or more of the federal requirements for elections (i.e., equal protection, due process, and the Electors Clause) and thus arise under federal law…..
Taken together, these flaws affect an outcome-determinative numbers of popular votes in a group of States that cast outcome-determinative numbers of electoral votes. This Court should grant leave to file the complaint and, ultimately, enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the Defendant States’ legislatures and remand to the Defendant States’ respective legislatures to appoint Presidential Electors in a manner consistent with the Electors Clause and pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 2.
Legal experts immediately called the filing a stunt and predicted that it wouldn’t go anywhere. But by the 9th, SCOTUS had put the case on the and demanded a response from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 3PM on Thursday, December 10th. In addition, seven states had joined Texas in the suit. Trump attorney Jordan Sekulow explained the importance. “This is the outcome determinative case. 62 electoral college votes at stake enough to change the outcome of the election.” He called it “the end all, be all case.”[ii] Writing for Breitbart, legal analyst Kris Kobach had this to offer. “Texas brought a suit against four states that did something they cannot do: they violated the U.S. Constitution in their conduct of the presidential election. And this violation occurred regardless of the amount of election fraud that may have resulted.” He continued. “First, they violated the Electors Clause of Article II of the Constitution when executive or judicial officials in the states changed the rules of the election without going through the state legislatures…. The second constitutional violation occurred when individual counties in each of the four states changed the way that they would receive, evaluate, or treat the ballots. …. Voters had the constitutional right to have their ballots treated equally from county to county. So when election officials in Wayne County, Michigan, ignored the requirements of Michigan law and denied poll watchers access to vote counting, while other counties in Michigan followed the law, that violated the Equal Protection Clause.”
And here’s the kicker – and the reason why the Supremes decided to take the case. “Importantly, the Texas lawsuit presents a pure question of law. It is not dependent upon disputed facts. Although these unconstitutional changes to the election rules could have facilitated voter fraud, the State of Texas doesn’t need to prove a single case of fraud to win. It is enough that the four states violated the Constitution.”[iii] Now, by the time you read this, we may know the result. But these are the facts on the ground as I write.
[i] In new lawsuit, Texas contests election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas Tribune, December 8, 2020
[ii] “This the End All, Be All Case” – Trump Attorney Jordan Sekulow, News LA, December 8, 2020
[iii] Kris Kobach, Kobach: Texas Case Challenges Election Directly at Supreme Court, Breitbart, December 7, 2020
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