Thursday, November 19, 2020

The Benny Hill Theme

Palmer and Hartmann said in their affidavits that they believed they had a firm commitment to an audit. But Palmer says in her affidavit that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) later said she didn’t view their resolution asking for an audit as binding.

“I felt misled,” Palmer told The Post earlier on Wednesday, before signing the affidavit. “I stand firm in not certifying Wayne County without the audit.”

Kinloch, though, said Palmer and Hartmann knew exactly what they were agreeing to on Tuesday, and the board has yet to even formally ask Benson for the audit.

Palmer “knew it wasn’t binding,” Kinloch said. “We just voted yesterday.”

Kinloch said he and Palmer texted each other into the early hours of Wednesday, with the Democrat explaining he had support across the board for the request. But he said Palmer was aware he had not been able to directly reach the secretary of state’s office on Tuesday night.

He said the two also communicated about the need to prepare a joint letter to the secretary of state to ask for the audit.

I keep looking for a way their legal strategy nakes sense.
“This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan as a direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted,” said Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in a statement.

The two Republican members of the board on Wednesday night tried to rescind their votes to certify the Wayne County results, but many legal experts say it is too late for them to stop certification from being approved.

“There is no legal mechanism for them to rescind their vote. Their job is done and the next step in the process is for the Board of State Canvassers to meet and certify,” a spokesperson for the Michigan secretary of state said.

But the "strategy" only makes sense in FoxNews World.

The two members signed affidavits, a "legal document" in the eyes of non-lawyers, but actually worse than useless as anything except a statement you have sworn is correct.  A piece of legal flummery, for the most part.  Certainly without the power to undo an official action.  Their objections, at best, are on record. Beyond that, nothing has changed. Except the Trump campaign has dropped yet another lawsuit it obviously knows it cannot win.  The only upside is, this lawsuit can't be a vehicle to the Supreme Court now. 

'Frankly this is a case that we would like to get to the Supreme Court. So we're prepared in some of these cases to lose and to appeal and to get it to the Supreme Court,' Giuliani told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo Tuesday.
The quality of legal advice here is truly appalling: December 8 can't come soon enough. A reminder: if a state doesn't certify its votes, the electors are not counted at the electoral college. The electoral college vote rests on electors appointed. The fewer electors appointed, the lower the threshold for victory. Biden, in that scenario, could win with fewer than 270 electoral votes. But will any state willingly give up its electoral college slate by refusing to certify its vote results?  That is the "plan": Which takes us back to that damned Atlantic article.  But then Rudy doesn't know the difference between rational basis and strict scrutiny.  He doesn't even know what "opacity" means.  I don't expect him to begin to understand the legal and Constitutional issues involved in a Presidential election.  Hell, he turned the equal protection reasoning of Bush v. Gore on its head, while citing Bush v. Gore as his authority.  The man is as clueless as Jenna Ellis.  If the states don't certify their votes (a usurpation of democracy I can't see any public official approving) the legislatures will not step in and appoint new electors.  Even if they did, those not be approved by the executive would not be elegible electors.  And then we're back to the "appointed electors" who are the only ones Congress can consider in approving the electoral college vote. That's not as comforting as it could be.
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3 comments:

  1. rustypickup11:11 AM

    Do I think Trump will succeed? No. Do I think there will be consequences for the country? Yes. I am watching several people I know with college degrees, in some cases advanced and professional degrees, believing that the election has been stolen. These are not the clearly delusional to be interviewed at Trump rally's as circus freaks, but people sharp at their jobs and otherwise highly competent. Before the election I was concerned watching neighbors and friends that seemed to be sliding from moderate conservatives into the ranks of the conspiracy theorists over COVID (created by the Chinese military, just like the flu, doctors are lying, etc.). The slide continues into theories of stolen elections. If find this all very disheartening. It undermines the democratic process, justifies anti-democratic and authoritarian actions in opposition, and fuels more grievances. The half of the Republicans that believe in wide scale voter fraud (according to surveys reported the last few days) aren't just the folks living on a farm in a rural county, but our suburban neighbors, colleagues in the next office and friends from years past. Biden will be president, of a very fractured and in far too many cases, delusional electorate.

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    1. Rmj12:06 PM

      OCICW, but I think this election will, like 2000 or the last Super Bowl (who won that thing?), fade from memory after January 20. People upset now won't be for long because it won't be in the headlines every five minutes, and no occupant of the White House will be tweeting out "I WON THE ELECTION!" We will, IOW, move on.

      Tensions around covid will subside too, as Biden stops feeding that nonsense and even GOP governors in Western states realize their people are dying and their hospitals are overflowing. Does this mean damage is not done? Of course not. The SC did great damage to itself in Bush v. Gore, especially on the "equal protection" argument (if Florida was using different standards to count the vote, doesn't every state do that, and every county? Houston (Harris County) has voting machines now 20 years old, but replacing them is expensive and the state keeps restricting how much money local governments can raise in taxes. Nobody else in Texas has these machines. Are we denied equal protection? Or worse, are Republicans (since Harris is now deeper blue than Austin)? The Supremes don't want to go there again, but the damage persists.

      We used to have political parties that protected us from this crap (and served us better at the local level). Having abandoned the "smoke-filled rooms," here we are, on a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night.

      Shit, I sound like an old man.....

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  2. The Thought Criminal11:11 AM

    It's one of the things you quickly learn watching blog and podcast and YouTube hustlers, they've always got to operate like writers for a soap-opera, cranking up the melodrama to get the thrill seekers coming back for more. The Atlantic hasn't exactly pulled out of the nose dive it took about the time Mort Zuckerman bought it, though as I recall it's changed hands since then. It's far from a must read thing anymore. Not that it ever much was.

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