It amounts to a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the people; a request by the Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton on behalf of the State of Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn millions of votes in four states; Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, on the baseless claim of voter fraud.
In any other eras this would be termed a vast overreach of power and an affront to the state’s rights historically lauded by Republicans, and dismissed by any serious Republican. Not in 2020. Seventeen state’s Attorneys General have joined the suit (all Republican) and then President Donald Trump jumped on board to join in, announcing that he expected congressional Republicans to sign on. He referred to it as an act of loyalty and said he was going to be “checking the list” (It’s December. Where have we heard that term before?)
Democracy in Retreat. Image courtesy of Freedom House
Yesterday, 109 Congressional Republicans announced they supported the effort, proving once again that some sort of mania has taken hold of the Republican Party. Ted Cruz, whose wife and father were viciously attacked by Trump during the 2016 primaries has agreed to be his water boy and plead the case before the Supreme Court, if it ever reaches there.
Which also means that 90 brave Republicans kept their senses about them and refused to support what has already been called a “far-fetched farce” aimed at overturning a fairly run election. Trump’s own Election Security lead Christopher Krebs said 2020 was the safest election in American history. For doing his job, Trump fired him.
If this scheme — which has been called ‘far-fetched” and “magical thinking” — were to be considered and the Supreme Court were to actually take it up and approve it, it would invalidate the election and overturn the will of the people. It comes as Trump has stopped doing baseless tweets about voter fraud and this week begun to tweet “#Overturn.”
That the suit hasn’t much actual chance of being heard appears obvious. “Neither the fact nor the law are on their side,’ said Chief Democrat Election Lawyer Marc Elias. He points out that not only is the application filled with numerous errors, but “baseless actions like this, that will be believed by millions of well-meaning but misinformed constituents “weaken our democracy.”
The Attorneys General of the four states Paxton has aimed at are not taking this well. They have strenuously objected to other states attempting to interfere in their election processes, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the attempt to overturn millions of votes by their citizens “a seditious abuse of the judicial process“and “absurd”.
Now, the laws are clear. Each state runs its elections based on the laws of that state — and states don’t interfere in other states’ election processes. In fact, in the United States proper, there are 3,007 counties (3,242 including territories and county equivalents). When it comes to elections, each county, and each county clerk and recorder, runs its own elections; meaning that in an election year there are 3,007 individual elections.
Democracy relies upon the faith and trust of the people. Their willingness to accept the candidates who win the majority of the votes lies at the core of our democracy. The fundamental tenet of democracy is our individual and collective right to vote and to have those votes counted. To question our elections, to announce that millions of votes should be thrown out simply because the losers don’t like the results, is not just dangerous, it is in fact, seditious. It would appear that what could not be done during the Civil War is now being done by a mania that has gripped the Republican party; we have one party that believes in democracy — and another Republican party that believes in — something else.
Which begs the question: why are they doing this? The obvious one is power — they want it, and they have decided that trashing our democracy is the way to get it.
With this backdrop, there are about 30 percent of Americans — 70 percent of Republican voters — who say they refuse to believe the results of the election (In other words, their guy lost and they can’t accept the most basic core of the democracy; there is a winner and a loser and we accept the results.) There are millions of armed and angry people, and hundreds of thousands of right-wing militias who think they have something to fight about.
But there is this: Paxton happens to be under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The possibility of a down-to-the-wire pardon may have crossed his mind.
#NewsCOneeds
Mark, What planet are you living on? Provide documented evidence to support your statement of massive fraud. But please do not spew forth baseless conspiracy theories. Doug Lamborn and Ken Buck joined a bunch of other poorly informed individuals and signed off on that attempt. Thanks to the Supreme Court they all ended up with egg on their face. As for the Attorneys General who were a part of this attempt, they should be removed from office. Even Trump’s handpicked Attorney General found no evidence of fraud in this election. The continued attempts at overthrowing a totally legitimate election amounts to sedition. Look up: Title 18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES in the Constitution. The election was legitimate and all attempts to overturn it are acts of sedition.
And now, just like the 50 other cases that Trumpers have filed, this undemocratic and anti-American effort has failed at the SCOTUS, as it was always destined to do. I guess conspiracy theories don’t do as well in court as they do on OAN.
It’s not a complete waste of time, though – we now have a list of 17 republican state Attorneys General and over 100 House Republicans, including Doug Lamborn and Ken Buck, who are on record as supporting baseless conspiracy theories, hating democracy, and supporting this attempted coup. Shame on them all.
Nothing to overturn. The election needs to be adjudicated since there is massive evidence of fraud. Until all the real votes are separated from the fraudulent ones there is nothing to overturn.
Mark, to be clear this is absolutely no factual evidence of fraud. None. Your sources are not telling you the truth. Expert sources say that it was the safest, most secure election in U.S. History. If you live in Colorado, you already know that our all-mail votes are processed in an orderly way that includes: signature validation, with envelopes separated from the ballot so the vote remains private, and then the ballot votes are counted. Colorado county clerks use a paper ballot, so there is no mistaking the voters intent.