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I LOVE this part

From the bench of judge Brann tonight that dismissed the Trump Campaign’s request to throw out *all* of the ballots cast in Pennsylvania on Election Day:

Associational standing allows an entity to bring suit on behalf of members upon a showing that: (1) “its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right;” (2) “the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose;” and (3) “neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.”63


In Cegavske (another case in which the Trump Campaign alleged violations of equal protection), the court found that the Trump Campaign failed to satisfy the second prong of associational standing because it “represents only Donald J. Trump and his ‘electoral and political goals’ of reelection.”64 That court noted that while the Trump Campaign might achieve its purposes through its member voters, the “constitutional interests of those voters are wholly distinct” from that of the Trump Campaign.65 No different here. Even if the Individual Plaintiffs attempted to vote for President Trump, their constitutional interests are different, precluding a finding of associational standing.

If I’m reading this correctly, he’s saying that the Trump Campaign feels that its voters’ constitutional interests were the same as the campaign’s electoral interests. Brann is saying that these voters’ rights to vote are independent in a constitutional sense whether or not Trump wins these voters’ votes. Do I have that right, oh you lawyers out there? Is the Trump Campaign owning our constitutional right to vote and is now insisting on determining how those votes should be counted?

Typical narcissist point of view. A right only exists if it’s in their interest.

I can’t believe that 70 million people knowingly signed on to that. It’s hilarious.

They would have busted a carotid if Hillary had pulled a stunt like this over only half the number of votes that Trump lost by here in PA. But Trump’s campaign didn’t want to just discard only mail in ballots, it wanted to throw out ALL of the ballots cast on 11/3, even the ones for Trump. Is this a case of “if I can’t win, PA is not allowed to count at all”?

And Trump voters are ok with this?

***************

BTW, who caught the reference to the voicemail from the Trump Campaign in the Procedural history section of the introduction?:

There have been at least two perceived discovery disputes, one oral argument, and a rude and ill-conceived voicemail which distracted the Court’s attention from the significant issues at hand.

I’m dying to know what that’s all about.

************

This Conclusion section is really good:

Defendants’ motions to dismiss the First Amended Complaint are granted with prejudice. Leave to amend is denied. “Among the grounds that could justify a denial of leave to amend are undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive, prejudice, and futility.”140 Given that: (1) Plaintiffs have already amended once as of right; (2) Plaintiffs seek to amend simply in order to effectively reinstate their initial complaint and claims; and (3) the deadline for counties in Pennsylvania to certify their election results to Secretary Boockvar is November 23, 2020, amendment would unduly delay resolution of the issues. This is especially true because the Court would need to implement a new briefing schedule, conduct a second oral argument, and then decide the issues.

So, is what he saying is that the Trump Campaign is acting in bad faith to run out the clock for a futile cause and ain’t nobody got time for that? Also, dismissed with prejudice means they can’t appeal to a different court? Or does it mean that the plaintiffs screwed this case up, had a chance to fix it, failed to fix it and now the judge has to agree with the defendants and can’t take it seriously in a legal sense?

Kind of hard to take this case to the Supreme Court if the buck stops here.

All I can say is Wow. This whole ruling is sprinkled with little gems like asking the Trump campaign if they really want to go with the allegations that they weren’t allowed to witness the count because that might (definitely) looks like lying to the court. And that “The disenfranchisement of even one person validly exercising his right to vote is an extremely serious matter.”125 “To the extent that a citizen’s right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen.”12

Hard to believe you’d actually have to spell this out for the Trump lawyers. On second thought, maybe not.

One final thing: Judge Brann is a Republican and a former member of the federalist society. That’s just weird. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around those seemingly contradictory conditions. It’s like spotting a unicorn.

*********

Ok, this last thing and then I’m really done:

Judge Brann made the observation that government can’t always make things exactly equal when it comes to voting procedures. Different counties may have different ways of administering the election for reasons of population size or budget or a host of other things. The result is that all voters do not have identical experiences on Election Day but that government can apply remedies to make sure no voter is harmed by these unavoidable inequalities.

Except mail in ballot voting eliminates the vast majority of those inequalities. Everyone has the same opportunity to use the postal service to mail in their votes and registering was as easy as it could be since the state mailed the mail in ballot registration option to every voter in the state.

In short, you couldn’t devise a better method of ensuring that all registered voters in the state are treated equally than by using a mail in ballot system. It’s about as faithful to the spirit of the Constitution and equal protection as you can get.

The only unequal thing about it this year is that so many voters were persuaded by their party to not take advantage of it.

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