4 ms·

> Is the idea here that by putting assertions that were discredited and that failed in court cases heard by Republican and, in some cases, Trump-appointed judge

> Is the idea here that by putting assertions that were discredited and that failed in court cases heard by Republican and, in some cases, Trump-appointed judges in Airtable, they somehow gain credibility? Yes. This is airtable is used on a number of websites that claim to show Biden cheated. It's a form of gish galloping - look closer at any of these, there's a reason why no court seriously entertained them. But when presented with so many items, it seems like there is something to it(of course, there's not).

briandear 6y ago
> why no court seriously entertained them The courts didn’t “entertain” them because of standing. Cases weren’t thrown out on merits. No court has actually heard evidence.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The courts didn’t “entertain” them because of standing. Cases weren’t thrown out on merits. No court has actually heard evidence. This is false on several levels. One, several cases went through trial to a verdict. Second, of those that did not, several were thrown out on grounds that while perhaps “procedural”, include as part of their standards review of the actual and proferred evidence in the light most favorable to the party to be ruled against. For instance, where cases were dismissed for “failure to state a claim”, this was not usually a finding that the Trump (or allied) party failed to enumerate the legal elements of an offense, but that they failed at the step beyond that which is required, to enumerate specific more detailed facts that actually would satisfy each of those elements, and proffer evidence which would make a prima facie case for each required point. (That is, which would suffice to prove the case in the absence of any counterevidence from the other side.) When cases are, as many of the Trump & allied cases were, thrown out for this reason, the court is making a finding on the merits: it is finding that the party being ruled against would lose on the merits if the case went to trial, all the evidence the moving party has offered were accepted at face value, and the other party just chose not to present anything at all to counter it. (Now, its true that in many cases the same lawsuits dismissed on this grounds were also dismissed on a other grounds – standing and laches, particularly – but it is misleading to say that the merits of the claims and the value of the evidence the plaintiff’s had was not considered.)
  - bdowling 6y ago
    > When cases are, as many of the Trump & allied cases were, thrown out for this reason, the court is making a finding on the merits ... That's not the way lawyers use the term "on the merits". See, e.g., [0]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/on_the_merits https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/on_the_merits
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > That's not the way lawyers use the term "on the merits" I'm fully aware of how lawyers use the term, but that's immaterial to the import being given to the term in this discussion. To the extent that whether a case was decided “on the merits” is being used as a proxy for the argument that the probative value of the evidence actually in the Trump campaign’s hands in claims of election fraud has not been evaluated, it is only valid if you consider any decision (even of “procedural” rather than “on the merits” in traditional legal categorization) where, in fact, that evidence was weighed by a standard at least as favorable as it would be at trial and nevertheless found wanting.
      - bdowling 6y ago
        The standard that a court uses when considering a motion to dismiss (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6)) is to first assume all of the facts alleged in the complaint are true. The judge then decides the motion as a matter of law. That is the exact opposite of weighing the evidence, which doesn't happen until trial. Edit: I think we're in agreement that "on the merits" here is being conflated with a trial that considers the probative value of evidence. They are not the same thing.
    - aw1621107 6y ago
      From the last sentence of that link (emphasis added): > The distinction between decisions that rest on the merits rather than on procedural grounds is important because a decision on the merits is considered final and is thus bound by res judicata... Decisions that do not rest on the merits, however, are not bound by res judicata because the claims were not properly heard. Thus, these claims may be brought forth in a subsequent case, excluding dismissals due to a failure to state a claim. In addition, from Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie [0]: > The dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is a "judgment on the merits." See Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183, 330 U. S. 190 (1947); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946). [0]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/452/394/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/452/394/
- newacct583 6y ago
  This is not true. There were 60+ cases involved here across five (I think) state jurisdictions and federal courts, and variants of this evidence was submitted and ruled on in quite a few. It is also true that most of these were tossed for things like standing. But the idea that courts "refused to hear the evidence" is exactly the kind of fake news / Big Lie argumentation that spawned the cases to begin with. Court cases contesting elections are routine and normal. We deal with them in every close election. These failed because they were bad cases, not because of any technical machination or deep conspiracy.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It is also true that most of these were tossed for things like standing. In the ones I’ve read that were tossed for standing or laches, most of them (possibly all, I don’t remember a specific counterexample) were also tossed for failure to state a claim, because while the plaintiffs did usually recite the textbook elements of a cause of action, they either failed to allege specific factual claims that would establish each of those elements, or the evidence that they proferred to support those specific fact claims was insufficient to make a prima facie case. Such a dismissal, while “procedural” in a sense, is also a decision on the merits – it is literally exactly a finding that if the plaintiff proved everything the evidence they claim to have could support regarding the claims they made, and the other party just let it all pass without challenge or counterevidence or presenting their own case, then the plaintiff would still lose on the merits.
    - mindslight 6y ago
      The doctrine of laches sounds overly technical or dryly procedural, but its purpose is avoiding exactly what happened here. Election rules could have been litigated any time before the election (and many were, both successfully and unsuccessfully). But waiting until after the election has been run, when your requested remedy can only be to invalidate the entire outcome, is completely unworkable.

briandear 6y ago

> why no court seriously entertained them The courts didn’t “entertain” them because of standing. Cases weren’t thrown out on merits. No court has actually heard evidence.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> The courts didn’t “entertain” them because of standing. Cases weren’t thrown out on merits. No court has actually heard evidence. This is false on several levels. One, several cases went through trial to a verdict. Second, of those that did not, several were thrown out on grounds that while perhaps “procedural”, include as part of their standards review of the actual and proferred evidence in the light most favorable to the party to be ruled against. For instance, where cases were dismissed for “failure to state a claim”, this was not usually a finding that the Trump (or allied) party failed to enumerate the legal elements of an offense, but that they failed at the step beyond that which is required, to enumerate specific more detailed facts that actually would satisfy each of those elements, and proffer evidence which would make a prima facie case for each required point. (That is, which would suffice to prove the case in the absence of any counterevidence from the other side.) When cases are, as many of the Trump & allied cases were, thrown out for this reason, the court is making a finding on the merits: it is finding that the party being ruled against would lose on the merits if the case went to trial, all the evidence the moving party has offered were accepted at face value, and the other party just chose not to present anything at all to counter it. (Now, its true that in many cases the same lawsuits dismissed on this grounds were also dismissed on a other grounds – standing and laches, particularly – but it is misleading to say that the merits of the claims and the value of the evidence the plaintiff’s had was not considered.)
- bdowling 6y ago
  > When cases are, as many of the Trump & allied cases were, thrown out for this reason, the court is making a finding on the merits ... That's not the way lawyers use the term "on the merits". See, e.g., [0]. [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/on_the_merits https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/on_the_merits
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > That's not the way lawyers use the term "on the merits" I'm fully aware of how lawyers use the term, but that's immaterial to the import being given to the term in this discussion. To the extent that whether a case was decided “on the merits” is being used as a proxy for the argument that the probative value of the evidence actually in the Trump campaign’s hands in claims of election fraud has not been evaluated, it is only valid if you consider any decision (even of “procedural” rather than “on the merits” in traditional legal categorization) where, in fact, that evidence was weighed by a standard at least as favorable as it would be at trial and nevertheless found wanting.
    - bdowling 6y ago
      The standard that a court uses when considering a motion to dismiss (e.g., Rule 12(b)(6)) is to first assume all of the facts alleged in the complaint are true. The judge then decides the motion as a matter of law. That is the exact opposite of weighing the evidence, which doesn't happen until trial. Edit: I think we're in agreement that "on the merits" here is being conflated with a trial that considers the probative value of evidence. They are not the same thing.
  - aw1621107 6y ago
    From the last sentence of that link (emphasis added): > The distinction between decisions that rest on the merits rather than on procedural grounds is important because a decision on the merits is considered final and is thus bound by res judicata... Decisions that do not rest on the merits, however, are not bound by res judicata because the claims were not properly heard. Thus, these claims may be brought forth in a subsequent case, excluding dismissals due to a failure to state a claim. In addition, from Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie [0]: > The dismissal for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is a "judgment on the merits." See Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183, 330 U. S. 190 (1947); Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946). [0]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/452/394/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/452/394/
newacct583 6y ago
This is not true. There were 60+ cases involved here across five (I think) state jurisdictions and federal courts, and variants of this evidence was submitted and ruled on in quite a few. It is also true that most of these were tossed for things like standing. But the idea that courts "refused to hear the evidence" is exactly the kind of fake news / Big Lie argumentation that spawned the cases to begin with. Court cases contesting elections are routine and normal. We deal with them in every close election. These failed because they were bad cases, not because of any technical machination or deep conspiracy.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It is also true that most of these were tossed for things like standing. In the ones I’ve read that were tossed for standing or laches, most of them (possibly all, I don’t remember a specific counterexample) were also tossed for failure to state a claim, because while the plaintiffs did usually recite the textbook elements of a cause of action, they either failed to allege specific factual claims that would establish each of those elements, or the evidence that they proferred to support those specific fact claims was insufficient to make a prima facie case. Such a dismissal, while “procedural” in a sense, is also a decision on the merits – it is literally exactly a finding that if the plaintiff proved everything the evidence they claim to have could support regarding the claims they made, and the other party just let it all pass without challenge or counterevidence or presenting their own case, then the plaintiff would still lose on the merits.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    The doctrine of laches sounds overly technical or dryly procedural, but its purpose is avoiding exactly what happened here. Election rules could have been litigated any time before the election (and many were, both successfully and unsuccessfully). But waiting until after the election has been run, when your requested remedy can only be to invalidate the entire outcome, is completely unworkable.