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Texas v. Pennsylvania (view source)
Revision as of 00:24, February 13, 2021
, 00:24, February 13, 2021Added to page
Like Benson's actions (and those of her counterparts in Pennsylvania and Georgia), these actions by Wayne County electoral officials were not only alterations to state election law that were unapproved by the legislature, and therefore unconstitutional; they also, the filing continued, "resulted in a number of constitutionally tainted votes that far exceeds the margin of voters separating the candidates in Michigan." In this particular instance, it can also provide a specific estimate of such votes: all absentee ballots have registration numbers to track them back to individual voters; however, 174,384 of the ballots counted in Wayne County (31% of the total) did not have such numbers, strongly suggesting that they were counted multiple times. Those ballots alone exceed the reported vote margin in the state between Trump and Biden, and since Republican poll watchers in the county were (illegally) kept out of the room where counting occurred, they cannot be legitimately accounted for. This, and the unconstitutionality of what state and local officials did, the suit concludes, is reason to toss the state's results.
Like Benson's actions (and those of her counterparts in Pennsylvania and Georgia), these actions by Wayne County electoral officials were not only alterations to state election law that were unapproved by the legislature, and therefore unconstitutional; they also, the filing continued, "resulted in a number of constitutionally tainted votes that far exceeds the margin of voters separating the candidates in Michigan." In this particular instance, it can also provide a specific estimate of such votes: all absentee ballots have registration numbers to track them back to individual voters; however, 174,384 of the ballots counted in Wayne County (31% of the total) did not have such numbers, strongly suggesting that they were counted multiple times. Those ballots alone exceed the reported vote margin in the state between Trump and Biden, and since Republican poll watchers in the county were (illegally) kept out of the room where counting occurred, they cannot be legitimately accounted for. This, and the unconstitutionality of what state and local officials did, the suit concludes, is reason to toss the state's results.
===Wisconsin===
Compared to the other states named in the suit, Wisconsin is presented as something as an outlier; its Secretary of State is not identified as an especially culpable official, and the case notes that it has on record some very strongly-written laws to prevent election fraud. The alleged violation of these laws came from other quarters, particularly on the local level.
The case focuses on a particular statute (Wisc. Stat. § 6.84(1)) which clearly states that while a number of drop-off locations for absentee ballots may be set up in individual localities, each must be staffed by responsible officials; they cannot be left unmanned. Nonetheless, a combined total of around five hundred unmanned drop-boxes were set up by the mayors of Green Bay, [[Kenosha, Wisconsin|Kenosha]], [[Madison, Wisconsin|Madison]], [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin|Milwaukee]], and Racine--Wisconsin's five largest cities, all of them predominantly Democratic. Beyond the fact of their being unmanned, the very use of drop-boxes, as opposed to drop-off sites, violates another law (Wisc. Stat. § 6.85(3)), which specifies that such locations must be fully functional sites, staffed by the municipal clerk, the board of election commissioners, or their employees. Any ballot mailed or delivered via drop-box (per Wisc. Stat. § 6.87(6)) "may not be counted." And yet another law (Wisc. Stat. § 6.84(2)) stipulates that "ballots counted in contravention of the procedures specified in those provisions may not be included in the certified result of any location."
Wisconsin Democratic officials appear to have acted in the belief that they could use the coronavirus pandemic to ignore these various laws. One means of doing so was by invoking "indefinite confinement" (IC), by which those who are disabled or suffering from severe illness or the effects of old age can obtain an absentee ballot without having to show identification. As early as the end of March 2020, the state election committee, as well as the county clerks for Dane (Madison) and Milwaukee Counties began advising residents to declare themselves IC on account of the pandemic. After Wisconsin Republicans filed suit in protest, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor and ordered a halt to the practice of declaring all voters IC; however, while Democratic election officials complied and ceased adding new names to the IC list, they did not remove from the lists those who had been added to it before the Court's ruling--another violation of state election laws, as voters have to tell the county or municipal clerk once they cease to qualify for IC, and the clerk must then remove them from the list. As a result, nearly 216,000 voters were labeled as IC and did not have to show ID or even have their signatures verified when obtaining and casting absentee ballots. The suit notes that only about 57,000 voters fell into the IC category in 2016; that of those 216,000 voters, 68,000 were in the Democratic strongholds of Dane and Milwaukee Counties (compared to 17,000 in 2016); and that the margin of Biden's alleged victory in Wisconsin was 20,565 votes.
The suit noted further that the City of Milwaukee's Election Commission also ignored state laws that absentee voters must complete and have notarized an address verification form, witnessed by an adult who must provide his or her address as well. If a ballot is returned without this form, or if the information on it is incomplete, election officials must return the ballot to the voter, who must complete it before the ballot can be counted. Instead, the commission declared that if there wasn't an address for the witness, they would find it on behalf of the voter and fill out the missing information in red ink. Affidavits have been provided by multiple witnesses to the effect that they witnessed this being done.
The suit also references testimony from Ethan Pease, a driver for the [[USPS]] who stated under oath that Postal Service employees were backdating ballots, at the direction of their supervisors, and that on Wednesday, November 4, his supervisor told him that 100,000 ballots were missing. Again, as the case stresses, Biden supposedly won Wisconsin by just over 20,000 votes.
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