"Math Doesn't Care About Your Feelings"

Late last week, the Trump campaign filed suit in Maricopa County claiming that “systemic poll worker error” led to thousands of votes not being counted for Trump in Arizona.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

The suit is based on affidavits from two AZ voters who claim they suffered this harm and from a few GOP poll observers who claim they saw the same thing happen to others. From this the campaign extrapolates that Trump lost 1000s of votes.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

The state’s lawyers also say the plaintiffs didn’t do anything to address the problems on Election Day itself and waited an unreasonably long time to file their suit.
(Note: This is actually the SECOND SharpieGate suit; the first was dropped.)

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

The parties are making opening statements now.
I'll being making periodic updates as the hearing continues.
Stay tuned.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, just said: "This is not a fraud case. We are not alleging fraud. We are not saying anyone is trying to steal the election."
Rather, he's saying there were "good faith errors" in the count.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

Hearing has gone into recess as the techs figure out the phone situation.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 12, 2020

In the meantime: Biden/Harris, in Maricopa County--1,038,364 Trump/Pence--993,691. IOW, Trump's lawyers have to find 44,674 individual instances of "good faith errors" in order to begin to make a difference in the count.

History has left the room, laughing its ass off.

P.S  note to non-lawyers.  "Good faith errors" much easier to prove than "fraud."  The former can be negligent (i.e., "good faith"); the latter must be intentional, with specific intent to commit the act of fraud.  Fraud is, in basic terms, knowingly make a misrepresentation you want others to rely upon, knowing they will rely on it to their detriment.  You can see why it's harder to prove.  Fraud undoes all that it touches.  That's a solvent not to be applied lightly.  As it undoes everything, the remedies for fraud can be equally extreme.  I would think all this claim could get is a recount.  They certainly won't get 44,674 ballots tossed out.  And which ones?  Just a random selection?  Ballots for Biden only?  There's a reason these cases don't end in mass destruction of ballots and completely reconfigured final vote tallies.  The recount leaves the responsibility on the propery authority.  If it changes the vote, it's because of a new tally, not a court order to change the outcome.

BTW, that hearing was wilder than I thought:

Such "witnesses" would not be cross-examined, he adds.

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 12, 2020

Defendants' lawyer: "There is an inherent level of untrustworthiness of documents filed in anticipation of litigation."

Let alone ones created after the fact to support their preferred candidate.

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 12, 2020

Yes, you are reading that right: this "evidence" is statements from comments on a website. The mind reels with the hearsay objections alone. No, they don't go there; they don't have to.

Counsel for intervenor DNC asks the court to stick to the rules of civil procedure.

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 12, 2020

Judge Kiley: "This is concerning."

"How is that a reliable process of gathering evidence?"

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 12, 2020

AAANNNNDDDD....scene!

Langhofer insists: "We've excluded everything that has the indicia of unreliability."

Judge Kiley responds: That's not an indicia of trustworthiness of the remaining affidavits. That just shows you can't disprove what's asserted.

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) November 12, 2020

Does anybody not a lawyer appreciate how rapidly these cases are being tossed out of court? I understand how they get an expedited hearing: there are deadlines in place (certification of vote count, vote of electoral college, etc.); but these things are being tossed as quickly as they come up for hearing. Without evidence, how can Trump's lawyers hope to get past this hearing?

We have a Court hearing tmrw. Judge said he has to be there. 945 am! https://t.co/NwzctTLz9M

— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) November 11, 2020

Grifters gonna grift.