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Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Overturn Election

9 points by adamsea 6y ago

adamsea 6y ago
The order: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p860.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p86... Full text of order: “ The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot. Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.”
- noodles_nomore 6y ago
  In other words, rigged elections (hypothetically speaking) in one state do not cause any demonstrable damage to another state? I was expecting this to come down to an argument over state sovereignty on election matters, but reality appears more cynical than me. Rigged election are not fine, but if they do happen no harm done.
  - bdcrazy 6y ago
    Rigged elections are not fine. If you have a problem with a state's election, you file a lawsuit on behalf of someone whose rights were actually violated. Oh right, lawsuits were filed in the right locations on behalf of people whose rights might have been violated, and most (all?) were dismissed due to lack of standing, lack of evidence or other deficiencies.
    - noodles_nomore 6y ago
      If a state can't have an interest that the constitution is followed, what point is there in even having a union? What did the states actually agree on? Edit: The answer to this is that the supreme court is there to judge in material matters of difference that independent states would otherwise go to war over. The federal election doesn't fall under this. Election is a sovereign matter especially for the states before each other.
      - nobody9999 6y ago
        >If a state can't have an interest that the constitution is followed, what point is there in even having a union? What did the states actually agree on? Among other things, that each state is responsible for it's own elections and just as Texas can't set Tennessee's tax regime or state penal code, they also can't tell PA, MI, GA and WI how to run their elections. Actually, it goes even further than that. The US Constitution (ratified by all fifty states when they joined the union states (Article II, Clause II): "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: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." In each state, sole authority for selecting electors is vested in the legislature of that state. In fact[0], the Constitution provides that the settlement of presidential election disputes first happens within the state legal system under powers granted by Article 2, Section 1. In a 2016 analysis of presidential election disputes, the Congressional Research Service said that “under the United States Constitution, these elections for presidential electors are administered and regulated in the first instance by the states, and state laws have established the procedures for ballot security, tallying the votes, challenging the vote count, recounts, and election contests within their respective jurisdictions.” [0] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-constitution-and-contested-presidential-elections https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-constitution-and-con...
        noodles_nomore 6y ago
        In some sense it's still a weird state of affairs. I tried to compare it to the fact that you can't find fault in 'how your neighbor came to decide on his vote', but the federal election is a two level system and they do have to follow the minimal procedure that, as the suit alleges, the legislative and not the executive has sole power in making the rules. Are you disenfranchised if your neighbor doesn't follow this law? It's not a sensible comparison anymore.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >Rigged election are not fine, but if they do happen no harm done. What evidence do you have that "rigging" occurred? No actionable evidence was presented in any of the 50 or so cases already filed (and uniformly rejected by the courts) in AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA and WI. Are you claiming that not only thousands of election workers, party officials, elected and appointed government officials, but also a couple dozen state and Federal judges, including the US Supreme Court (cf. Kelly v. Pennsylvania), Democrats and Republicans conspired (and succeeded) to steal the election from Donald Trump? That assertion would be laughable if it weren't so corrosive to our election systems and our federal constitutional form of government. But don't take my word for it. Or anyone else's for that matter. Read the case records, including complaints, briefs, arguments from both sides and the judicial opinions.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - adamsea 6y ago
    You're not arguing in good faith and what you're saying is, "I don't want to live in a democracy, I want to live in an authoritarian one-party state." There was no election fraud of any kind and every single one of these lawsuits is really intended to undermine small-d democracy and invalidate the election. Get the fuck out.

9 points by adamsea 6y ago

The order: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p860.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p86... Full text of order: “ The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot. Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.”

noodles_nomore 6y ago
In other words, rigged elections (hypothetically speaking) in one state do not cause any demonstrable damage to another state? I was expecting this to come down to an argument over state sovereignty on election matters, but reality appears more cynical than me. Rigged election are not fine, but if they do happen no harm done.
- bdcrazy 6y ago
  Rigged elections are not fine. If you have a problem with a state's election, you file a lawsuit on behalf of someone whose rights were actually violated. Oh right, lawsuits were filed in the right locations on behalf of people whose rights might have been violated, and most (all?) were dismissed due to lack of standing, lack of evidence or other deficiencies.
  - noodles_nomore 6y ago
    If a state can't have an interest that the constitution is followed, what point is there in even having a union? What did the states actually agree on? Edit: The answer to this is that the supreme court is there to judge in material matters of difference that independent states would otherwise go to war over. The federal election doesn't fall under this. Election is a sovereign matter especially for the states before each other.
    - nobody9999 6y ago
      >If a state can't have an interest that the constitution is followed, what point is there in even having a union? What did the states actually agree on? Among other things, that each state is responsible for it's own elections and just as Texas can't set Tennessee's tax regime or state penal code, they also can't tell PA, MI, GA and WI how to run their elections. Actually, it goes even further than that. The US Constitution (ratified by all fifty states when they joined the union states (Article II, Clause II): "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: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." In each state, sole authority for selecting electors is vested in the legislature of that state. In fact[0], the Constitution provides that the settlement of presidential election disputes first happens within the state legal system under powers granted by Article 2, Section 1. In a 2016 analysis of presidential election disputes, the Congressional Research Service said that “under the United States Constitution, these elections for presidential electors are administered and regulated in the first instance by the states, and state laws have established the procedures for ballot security, tallying the votes, challenging the vote count, recounts, and election contests within their respective jurisdictions.” [0] https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-constitution-and-contested-presidential-elections https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-constitution-and-con...
      - noodles_nomore 6y ago
        In some sense it's still a weird state of affairs. I tried to compare it to the fact that you can't find fault in 'how your neighbor came to decide on his vote', but the federal election is a two level system and they do have to follow the minimal procedure that, as the suit alleges, the legislative and not the executive has sole power in making the rules. Are you disenfranchised if your neighbor doesn't follow this law? It's not a sensible comparison anymore.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Rigged election are not fine, but if they do happen no harm done. What evidence do you have that "rigging" occurred? No actionable evidence was presented in any of the 50 or so cases already filed (and uniformly rejected by the courts) in AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA and WI. Are you claiming that not only thousands of election workers, party officials, elected and appointed government officials, but also a couple dozen state and Federal judges, including the US Supreme Court (cf. Kelly v. Pennsylvania), Democrats and Republicans conspired (and succeeded) to steal the election from Donald Trump? That assertion would be laughable if it weren't so corrosive to our election systems and our federal constitutional form of government. But don't take my word for it. Or anyone else's for that matter. Read the case records, including complaints, briefs, arguments from both sides and the judicial opinions.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- adamsea 6y ago
  You're not arguing in good faith and what you're saying is, "I don't want to live in a democracy, I want to live in an authoritarian one-party state." There was no election fraud of any kind and every single one of these lawsuits is really intended to undermine small-d democracy and invalidate the election. Get the fuck out.