Vox Popoli

Joe Biden will not set foot in that White House. 170k votes in Michigan have just been discovered to not have a trace to a registered voter in Michigan. For those asking, this information is in the Texas lawsuit. 174k ballots in Wayne County Michigan can not be tracked to a registered voter in the state.

– Melissa Tate

Those votes are all absentee ballots to whom no registered voter can be connected. It’s right there in the previous post in the Texas response to Michigan. That is clear and incontrovertible evidence of fraud. Trump clearly won Michigan on that basis alone.

Michigan also admits that it “is at a loss to explain the[] allegations” showing that Wayne County lists 174,384 absentee ballots that do not tie to a registered voter.  Mich. Br. 15; Compl. ¶ 97. 

Texas doesn’t hesitate to shoot right back at the assertions made by the four states about its claims. This is just the first section, which deals with the various assertions made in the four responses that Texas’s claims have no basis in fact.

Defendant States’ factual defense of the administration of the 2020 election lacks merit. Thus, Texas states a claim on those issues. 

A. Pennsylvania’s critiques of the evidence are false.

Pennsylvania attacks Dr. Cicchetti’s probability analysis calculating that the statistical chances of Mr. Biden’s winning the election in the Defendant States individually and collectively, given the known facts, are less than one in a quadrillion. Penn. Br. 6-8. Pennsylvania argues that Dr Cicchetti did not take into account that “votes counted later were indisputably not ‘randomly drawn’ from the same population of votes” in his analysis.  Penn. Br. 6-8. 

Pennsylvania is wrong.

First, Dr. Cicchetti did take into account the possibility that votes were not randomly drawn in the later time period but, as stated in his original Declaration, he is not aware of any data that would support such an assertion. See Supplemental Declaration of Charles Cicchetti (“Supp. Cicchetti Decl.”) ¶¶ 2-3. (App. 152a-153a). Second, although Pennsylvania argues that such data is “indisputabl[e]”, Pennsylvania offers in support nothing other than counsel’s assertion. Unsworn statements of counsel, however, are not evidence. See Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497, 503 (1948).

In fact, Pennsylvania’s rebuttal to Dr. Cicchetti’s analysis consists solely of ad hominem attacks, calling it “nonsense” and “worthless”.  Penn Br. 6, 8. Notably, a subsequent analysis by Dr. Cicchetti, comparing Mr. Biden’s underperformance in the Top-50 urban areas in the Country relative to former Secretary Clinton’s performance in the 2016 election, reinforces the unusual statistical improbability of Mr. Biden’s vote totals in the five urban areas in the Defendant States. See Supp. Cicchetti Decl. at ¶¶ 4-12, 20-21. (App. 154a-158a).

Pennsylvania also tries to explain away the reported 400,000 discrepancy between the number of mail-in ballots Pennsylvania sent out as reported on November 2, 2020 (2.7 million) and the figure reported on November 4, 2020 (3.1 million) as described in the Ryan Report. Penn. Br. 6-8; Compl. ¶ 59. 

Pennsylvania again conclusorily asserts that the discrepancy is purportedly due to the fact that “[o]f the 3.1 million ballots sent out, 2.7 million were mail-in ballots and 400,000 were absentee ballots.” Pennsylvania Br. 6.  However, as fifteen Pennsylvania legislators stated in the Ryan Report, signed on December 4, 2020: “This discrepancy … has not been explained.” Compl. ¶ 59. Compl. ¶ 59 (App. 143a-44a). 

The Ryan Report states further: “This apparent discrepancy can only be evaluated by reviewing all transaction logs into the SURE system…” (App. 144a). Pennsylvania’s unsupported explanation has no merit.

Notably, Pennsylvania says nothing about the 118,426 ballots that had no mail date, were nonsensically returned before the mailed date, or were improbably returned one day after the mail date. Lastly, Pennsylvania argues that it did not break its promise to this Court to segregate ballots received after November 3, 2020.  Penn. Br. 6.  Justice Alito’s order dated November 6, 2020 belies that argument. See Compl. ¶ 8.  And because Pennsylvania broke its promise to this Court, it is not possible to determine how many tens, or even hundreds of thousands of illegal late ballots were wrongfully counted. Compl. ¶ 55.

B. Georgia’s critiques of the evidence are false.

Georgia argues that the “[r]ejection rates for signatures on absentee ballots remained largely unchanged” as between the 2018 and 2020 elections, referring the Court to Wood v. Raffensperger, No. 1:20-cv-04651-SDG, 2020 WL 6817513, at *10 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 20, 2020) (“Wood”). Georgia Br. 4.  Georgia’s reliance on Wood is misplaced because the analysis therein related to rejection rates for absentee ballots—as opposed to the mail-in ballots analyzed by Dr. Cicchetti. Supp. Cicchetti Decl. ¶¶ 13-19. (App. 158a-60a). Georgia’s rejection rate comparison is therefore inapposite.  Id.

Specifically, the district court in Wood cited to “ECF 33-6” (id. at n.30) which is the affidavit of Chris Harvey, Georgia Director of Elections.  First, the Harvey Affidavit itself does not cite any evidence for signature rejection rates; rather, it relies solely upon a complaint in an unrelated action. Supp. Cicchetti Decl. ¶¶ 14-15. (App. 158a-59a) (citing Democratic Party of Georgia et al. v. Raffensperger).   Second, as explained by Dr. Cicchetti, the Harvey Affidavit relies on 2018 data which does not provide an accurate comparison with a presidential election year. Id. ¶¶ 19, 22. (App. 160a-62a).  More importantly, the Harvey affidavit discusses absentee ballots—not mail-in ballots at issue here and as analyzed by Dr. Cicchetti.  Mail-in ballots are subject to much higher rejection rates. Indeed, in 2018, the rejection rate for mail-in ballots was actually 3.32{e61d147451bc60549e96d95b5c07be35845e0345eab7ed5d54cc3d49f812ab5c} or more than twenty times higher than the rejection rate for the absentee ballots that Georgia incorrectly compares to dispute Dr. Cicchetti’s analysis. .  Id. at ¶¶ 16-18. (App. 159a-60a).   In short, Georgia’s attempt to rebut Dr. Cicchetti’s analysis fails. Id. ¶ 22. (App. 161a-62a).

C. Michigan’s critiques of the evidence are false.

Michigan’s argument against the evidence of irregularities in Wayne County’s election process fares no better.  First, Michigan concedes that, with respect to the ballots issued pursuant to the Secretary of State’s unlawful mailing of ballot applications and online ballot applications—which also did not comply with statutory signature verification requirements— “there is no way to associate the voter who used a particular application with his or her ballot after it is voted.” Mich. Br. 9; Compl. ¶¶ 81-87. Michigan’s “heads we win, tails you lose” defense should be rejected.  This is a problem solely of the Secretary of State’s own making.

Michigan also admits that it “is at a loss to explain the[] allegations” showing that Wayne County lists 174,384 absentee ballots that do not tie to a registered voter.  Mich. Br. 15; Compl. ¶ 97.  That is precisely the point.  And it illustrates exactly why the Court should grant Plaintiff’s motion.

Similarly, Michigan’s argument that the fact that 71{e61d147451bc60549e96d95b5c07be35845e0345eab7ed5d54cc3d49f812ab5c} of Detroit’s Absent Voter Counting Boards (“AVCBs”) were unbalanced provides no basis not to certify results is false. Mich. Br. 16.  In fact, while Michigan asserts that this “can happen for a number of innocuous reasons” it nonetheless offers no explanation for the highly suspicious circumstances: that this out of balance situation resulted in more than 174,000 votes not being tied to a registered voter; that two members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers initially voted against certification based on these issues, then voted in favor of certification after receiving both threats and assurances of an immediate audit; and then rescinded their certification votes after the promised audit was refused.  Compl. ¶¶ 99-101. Texas understands that these issues involving Wayne County’s irregular votes have not been adjudicated, and Michigan does not contend otherwise. But it is suggestive at this preliminary stage of the proceeding.

Lastly, Michigan’s attempts to argue away the evidence showing that Wayne County had a policy of not performing signature verifications as required under MCL § 168.765a(6) are misplaced. Mich. Br. 14-15; Compl. ¶¶ 85-87, 92-95.  Michigan cites the affidavit of Christopher Thomas, a consultant for Detroit, used in litigation in Michigan state court, as evidence for its assertion. Mich. Br. 11, 15-16. 

Thomas, however, does not state that he personally observed signatures being verified in accordance with MCL § 168.765a(6).  That statute requires that the clerk place a “written statement” or “stamp” on each ballot envelope where the voter signature is placed, indicating that the voter signature was in fact checked and verified with the signature on file with the State. Compl. ¶ 92.  Thus, contrary to Michigan’s argument, Thomas’ assertions do not rebut the testimony of Jessy Jacob, a decades-long City of Detroit employee stating that election workers were instructed not to compare signatures. Id. ¶ 94.  In fact, a poll challenger, Lisa Gage, testified in an affidavit that has not been submitted in any prior litigation, that not a single one of the several hundred to a thousand ballot envelopes she observed had a written statement or stamp indicating the voter signature had been verified at the TCF Center in accordance with MCL § 168.765a(6). Affidavit of Lisa Gage ¶ 17. (App. 165a).

D. Wisconsin’s critiques of the evidence are false.

Wisconsin argues that “Texas offers no proof of a single voter who cast a ballot in the general election who did not qualify for indefinite confinement status.”  Wisc. Br. 31. Under Wisconsin law, “indefinite confinement status” allows a voter to avoid Wisconsin’s statutory photo identification and signature verification requirements.  Compl. ¶¶ 115-17. The number of people claiming this special status exploded from fewer than 57,000 voters in 2016 to nearly 216,000 in 2020.  Compl. ¶ 122.  Wisconsin claims this increase was due to more people voting by mail in 2020.  Wisc. Br. 31.

Voting by mail, however, has nothing to do with being classified as “indefinitely confined.” Wisconsin offers no plausible justification for this nearly four-fold increase in voters claiming this special status.  

Wisconsin also ignores the fact that the Wisconsin Supreme Court found that clerks in Dane County and Milwaukee County had earlier violated Wisconsin law by issuing guidance stating that all voters should identify themselves as “indefinitely confined” on absentee ballot applications because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Compl. ¶¶ 118-19.  Despite that order, the WEC again violated Wisconsin law and issued a directive to the Wisconsin clerks prohibiting removal of voters from the registry for indefinite-confinement status even if the voter is no longer “indefinitely confined,” thereby cementing this improper practice in the 2020 general election. Id. at ¶¶ 120-21.

Lastly, Wisconsin ignores the sworn testimony of Ethan J. Pease, a box truck delivery driver subcontracted to the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”) to deliver truckloads of mail-in ballots to the sorting center in Madison, WI, who testified that USPS employees were backdating ballots received after November 3, 2020.  Compl. ¶127. (App. 149a-151a). 

Further, Pease testified how a senior USPS employee told him on November 4, 2020 that “An order came down from the Wisconsin/Illinois Chapter of the Postal Service that 100,000 ballots” had been misplaced and described how the USPS dispatched employees to “find[] … the ballots.” Id. (App. 150a).

It’s pretty clear already that Texas has both the facts and the law on its side. That doesn’t mean it will win, of course, because the law is really little more than a game of giving the judge(s) the legal justification to do what he thinks best. But Texas has provided the Supreme Court with considerably more ammunition than the PA-GA-MI-WI cabal.

I especially like that Texas has called out the “heads we win, tails you lose” defense that Michigan is trying to play. I find that sort of Catch-22 nonsense to be particularly obnoxious.

The Michigan response to the Texas lawsuit is less histrionic and more superficially substantive than the Pennsylvania response, but it relies upon the same deceptive logic that depends heavily upon the previous judicial shenanigans of the lower courts. The Attorneys General are trying to use the decisions of the various lower courts to refuse to look at the evidence of various violations of their own state laws as an excuse to claim that the Supreme Court has no need to look at the evidence of those violations because the lower courts already did. Which, of course, they didn’t.

Essentially, the four states are relying upon the idea that even though their actions appear to violate the written laws, because their state courts said those actions were okay, the law was not violated. It’s a variant of the case law citations that one sees in court and arbitration, and is heavily reliant upon procedure rather than substance.

The Constitution has entrusted the states to determine their electors in a presidential election. Consistent with Michigan law, the State of Michigan has certified its presidential vote and the election in Michigan is over. The challenge here is an unprecedented one, without factual foundation or a valid legal basis. 

This Court should summarily dismiss the motion to file the bill of complaint. To do otherwise would make this Court the arbiter of all future national elections. 

The base of Texas’s claims rests on an assertion that Michigan has violated its own election laws. Not true. That claim has been rejected in the federal and state courts in Michigan, and just yesterday the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch effort to request an audit. Not only is the complaint meritless here, but its jurisdictional flaws abound and provide solid ground to dispose of this action. 

To begin, Texas has not alleged a sufficient case or controversy to support its standing to invoke this Court’s original jurisdiction. But even if Texas clears that hurdle, the Court’s prudential factors weigh against exercising jurisdiction. Texas does not have a cognizable interest in how Michigan runs its elections, and there plainly are alternative forums to raise these issues. Indeed, the lower courts have already found that similar claims lack legal and factual merit. 

Laches also applies to bar review of Texas’s complaint. Texas delayed weeks and then filed at the last hour, and that delay has prejudiced Michigan. Michigan certified the election results on November 23. The State is entitled to enjoy the benefit of the “safe harbor” provision created by Congress, 3 U.S.C. § 5. 

But even if the Court were to exercise jurisdiction, there is no merit to Texas’s constitutional claims. 

First, Texas lacks standing to bring its Electors Clause claim where its asserted injury is nothing more than a generalized grievance that the Clause was violated. And even if Texas has standing, its substantive claim fails because Michigan officials did not violate any of the election laws cited by Texas in conducting its election. Michigan’s election was administered lawfully; the Electors Clause was not violated. 

Second, Texas’s equal protection claim fails where it does not identify a group that has been given preference or advantage—the hallmark of such a claim. 

And there has been no devaluation of any person’s— or group of persons’—votes above or beneath any others’. There has been no violation of equal protection. 

Third, Texas’s substantive due process claim, assuming that is the claim being brought, fails where the alleged injury—vote dilution—is properly addressed under equal protection, and it fails there. 

Finally, Texas fails to establish any of the requisite factors necessary for granting an injunction. It has no likelihood of success on the merits of its claims, and the remaining factors strongly weigh in favor of denying the extraordinary relief Texas seeks—disenfranchising millions of voters. 

This Court should deny Texas’s motion to file a bill of complaint and its motion for injunctive relief.  

And speaking of Michigan, this recent post on the official state website urging voters “to be wary of false claims” indicates that they know they’ve been caught red-handed with the Dominion machines. It’s about as convincing as Hunter Biden urging people to be wary of deepfake videos that show him having sex with his relatives and foreign spies.

On Sunday, individuals with no apparent technical expertise in election technology were permitted to gather images of Dominion voting equipment in Antrim County. While the information they gathered is subject to a court-issued protective order, the Michigan Department of State warns voters to be wary of the claims that the group may make in coming days. Members of the group have previously made false statements, shared fake documents and made baseless claims about the election that have been widely debunked and rejected in multiple courts.

 “It is disappointing, though not surprising, that the primary goal of this group is to continue spreading false information designed to erode the public’s confidence in the election. By doing so, they injure our democracy and dishonor the 5.5. million Michigan citizens who cast ballots,” said Michigan Department of State spokesperson Jake Rollow. “As Attorney General William Barr, the FBI and CISA have found, this was the most secure election in our nation’s history and, despite unprecedented scrutiny, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud identified whatsoever.”

If any candidate truly thought that the Dominion machines failed to correctly count ballots, they could and should have requested a hand-recount of ballots. No recounts of state elections were requested in Antrim County.

 The Antrim County unofficial reporting error has already been thoroughly explained and did not impact tabulation. It was prompted by the clerk not updating media drives in some of the machines in Antrim County, an accidental human error. Reporting errors are common, and always caught and corrected in the county canvass, if not before, as was the case in Antrim County. More information is available on the MDOS Fact Check webpage, Michigan.gov/SOSFactCheck.

To further safeguard public confidence, the Bureau of Elections will be working with clerks to conduct an audit of all ballots in Antrim County. While there is no evidence the tabulators malfunctioned in any way, the audit of all ballots cast in the presidential election will confirm all machines counted ballots properly and will disprove the ongoing disinformation campaign attempting to undermine confidence in the election. 

They believe that if they just stick to the lies faithfully enough, eventually reality will conform to their deception. 

 In case you ever wanted to know what is legalspeak for REEEEEEEE, now you know. This is the introduction to the PA Supreme Court filing. It’s not exactly impressive.

Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees. Its request for this Court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for President is legally indefensible and is an afront to principles of constitutional democracy.

What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this Court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this Court and other courts. It attempts to exploit this Court’s sparingly used original jurisdiction to relitigate those matters. But Texas obviously lacks standing to bring such claims, which, in any event, are barred by laches, and are moot, meritless, and dangerous. Texas has not suffered harm simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections. Nor is that view grounded in any precedent from this Court. Texas does not seek to have the Court interpret the Constitution, so much as disregard it.

The cascading series of compounding defects in Texas’s filings is only underscored by the surreal alternate reality that those filings attempt to construct. That alternate reality includes an absurd statistical analysis positing that the probability of President-Elect Biden winning the election was “one in a quadrillion.” Bill of Complaint at 6. Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.

It’s interesting how they can always invent a reason for the Supreme Court to hear a matter that isn’t even remotely relevant to it in order to explore all the emanations and penumbras, but when it is literally the one thing that is unquestionably the Supreme Court’s job – arbitrate between the sovereign States – well, that’s just unprecedented!

Note the mention of “seditious abuse”. They always project, and in doing so, they always tell you what they are doing.