[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/22/20

[Rick Hasen]

“No. 2 GOP senator: Efforts to overturn election would ‘go down like a shot dog'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119851>
Posted on December 21, 2020 9:13 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119851> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Hill:<https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/531227-no-2-gop-senator-efforts-to-overturn-election-would-go-down-like-a-shot-dog>

Sen. John Thune<https://thehill.com/people/john-thune> (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, warned on Monday that efforts to challenge the Electoral College vote in Congress next month would fall short in the Senate.

The GOP senator — who has publicly and privately pushed back against the effort being led by Rep. Mo Brooks<https://thehill.com/people/mo-brooks> (R-Ala.) — argued that it would be futile to force both chambers to vote on an objection to the Electoral College vote that is “not going anywhere.”

“I mean, in the Senate, it would … go down like a shot dog,” Thune told reporters. “I just don’t think it makes a lot of sense to put everybody through this when you know what the ultimate outcome is going to be.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Anti-Semitic, misogynist attacks on Wisconsin Supreme Court justices after Trump ruling”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119849>
Posted on December 21, 2020 9:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119849> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wisconsin Examiner<https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/antisemitic-misogynist-attacks-on-wisconsin-supreme-court-justices-after-trump-ruling/>:

Trump supporters unleashed a barrage of obscenity on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky after Karofsky joined the majority in a decision rejecting the Trump campaign’s lawsuit seeking to throw out more than 200,000 votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties.

Progressive Magazine editor Bill Lueders has published<https://progressive.org/dispatches/wisconsin-jurists-defied-trump-earful-lueders-201217/> the contents of some of those messages to Karofsky, which the Progressive received in response to an open records request. In an article<https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/12/08/wisconsin-justice-hagedorn-gets-trashed-praised-by-public/> co-published by the Wisconsin Examiner, Lueders also reported on the contents of critical voicemail and email messages aimed at conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, who wrote the majority decision rejecting the Trump campaign’s lawsuit.

The messages to Karofsky were both cruder and more aggressive than those directed at Hagedorn. Justice Rebecca Dallet also shared email, voicemail, and written messages denouncing her for joining the decision.

Karofsky and Dallet were the targets of an online anti-Semitic attack on a blog reposted by the white supremacist website Daily Stormer that identifies Karofsky and Dallet as “Wisconsin Jews.”

“Powerful Jews came together to assure their people hold as many positions of power as possible,” it asserts, and repeats anti-Semitic canards about a cabal of wealthy Jews who dominate Ivy League universities and businesses.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Prosecutors Charge PA Voter with Voter Fraud in Voting His Dead Mother’s Absentee Ballot for Trump<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119847>
Posted on December 21, 2020 8:54 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119847> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This is typical<https://www.inquirer.com/news/bruce-bartman-election-fraud-delaware-county-20201221.html>; an isolated, stupid criminal act, not a vast conspiracy to change election results. “In his political frustration, he chose to do something stupid,” [the man’s lawyer said]. “And for that he is very sorry.”
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Trump assembles a ragtag crew of conspiracy-minded allies in flailing bid to reverse election loss”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119845>
Posted on December 21, 2020 6:12 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119845> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-assembles-a-ragtag-crew-of-conspiracy-minded-allies-in-flailing-bid-to-reverse-election-loss/2020/12/21/d7674cd2-43b2-11eb-b0e4-0f182923a025_story.html>

With his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud rejected by dozens of judges and GOP leaders, President Trump has turned to a ragtag group of conspiracy theorists, media-hungry lawyers and other political misfits in a desperate attempt to hold on to power after his election loss.

The president’s orbit has grown more extreme as his more mainstream allies, including Attorney General William P. Barr, have declined to endorse his increasingly radical plans to overturn the will of the voters. Trump’s unofficial election advisory council now includes a felon, adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a White House trade adviser and a Russian agent’s former lover.

Members of the group assembled­ in the Oval Office on Friday for a marathon meeting that lasted more than four hours and included discussion of tactics ranging from imposing martial law in swing states to seizing voting machines through executive fiat. The meeting exploded into shouting matches as outside advisers and White House aides clashed over the lack of a cohesive strategy and disagreed about the constitutionality of some of the proposed solutions….

Monday’s meeting at the White House followed an Oval Office gathering Friday that was one of the most contentious yet of Trump’s seven-week post-election push to reverse his fate.

Gathered around the Resolute Desk on Friday were: Sidney Powell, the lawyer who has promoted a baseless allegation that hostile nations manipulated voting machines to flip votes for Biden; Michael Flynn, the recently pardoned former national security adviser who has publicly suggested invoking martial law to “basically rerun an election”; former Overstock chief executive Patrick Byrne, who now promotes election conspiracy theories; and White House officials including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Staff Secretary Derek Lyons and Counsel Pat Cipollone. Giuliani joined the meeting by phone.AD

Over several hours, the Oval Office erupted into raucous acrimony as the outside advisers proposed a number of extreme measures for reversing the results while the White House officials pointed out that such actions would be unconstitutional or otherwise unworkable.

Powell and others told the president Friday that they had evidence that voting machines had been tampered with, though White House officials said the evidence was nonsense. But Powell’s presence in the West Wing — and her multiple returns for additional meetings, including on Monday — are an indication that the outsiders are gaining sway.

Powell had been publicly dismissed from Trump’s legal team last month, with several Trump advisers saying the president thought a conspiracy-filled news conference she held Nov. 19 had been too outlandish. Trump has since gravitated back to her because other advisers are not giving him any paths to victory — and she claims to have paths, aides said. During the meeting Friday, Trump considered naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud, officials said.

Giuliani proposed that the federal government seize and inspect voting machines from states where the president is challenging his loss.

Flynn, who had said on Newsmax the previous day that Trump could order the military to rerun the election in key swing states, was on hand to discuss his idea.

White House aides pushed back strongly on the idea of invoking martial law, officials said, but the raw feelings from the meeting have since spilled into public view.

Powell, who has repeatedly told the president that his aides are too timorous and should be taking stronger steps, has taken some of her criticism public since the meeting.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“House conservatives strategize with Trump and Pence in push to challenge Biden’s win”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119843>
Posted on December 21, 2020 5:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119843> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN<https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/21/politics/house-conservatives-trump-meeting/index.html?__twitter_impression=true>:

Alabama GOP Rep. Mo Brooks<https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/politics/mo-brooks-surrender-caucus/index.html> and fellow House conservatives met privately on Monday with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as the lawmakers prepared to mount a long-shot bid in January to overturn the Electoral College results that made Joe Biden the official winner of the election.

The discussion focused on Trump’s baseless claims <https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/06/politics/fact-check-trump-election-theft-fraud-thursday/index.html> and conspiracies that the election was stolen from him, participants said, and lawmakers emerged confident that there were would be a contingent of House and Senate Republicans who would join the effort and prompt a marathon debate on the floor on January 6 that would spill into January 7.

Pence’s involvement in the meeting is significant because he will preside over the joint session of Congress that would count the electoral votes that day. Brooks said that Pence attended “different parts” of the meeting.

“I believe we have multiple senators and the question is not if but how many,” Brooks said, something that would defy the wishes of Senate Republican leaders who are eager to move on<https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/15/politics/mitch-mcconnell-congratulates-joe-biden/index.html> and urging senators not to participate since doing so could force them to cast a politically toxic vote against Trump.

Brooks told CNN on Monday night that they would seek to challenge the election in at least six battleground states, saying he needs to coordinate “as many as 72” five-minute speeches that GOP lawmakers would make that day. “That’s a significant task,” he said.

The effort is doomed to fail but would create a spectacle that Senate GOP leaders want to avoid. And if a House member and a senator object to six states’ results, it would lead to at least 12 hours of debate, in addition to the time for casting votes on each of the motions, potentially prolonging the fight until the next day.

The White House meeting, Brooks said, was to discuss “how bad the voter fraud and election theft” was in November, even though such claims have been rejected by election officials and courts across the country….

While the House conservatives have virtually no chance at succeeding, it would put many Republicans in an awkward spot. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his top lieutenants have urged senators not to join House conservatives because they would then be forced to cast a vote that would make them choose between Trump and the will of the voters.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Pa. election officials are burnt out and leaving their jobs after 2020 ‘nightmare’”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119841>
Posted on December 21, 2020 2:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119841> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Penn Live:<https://www.pennlive.com/elections/2020/12/pa-election-officials-are-burnt-out-and-leaving-their-jobs-after-2020-nightmare.html?fbclid=IwAR2RGnLy7dQ_1oEgik6K1DitLG2Jqqr-fjs_0RlNIrPiRJWNJF78KyqPxJg>

Even before the pandemic emerged this spring, county election directors said they warned lawmakers and state officials that huge changes to Pennsylvania’s voting system were too much, too fast. Other states took years to implement statewide no-excuse mail voting. They had a few months.

Since the passage of Act 77, the 2019 law that made sweeping changes to voting in Pennsylvania, at least 21 election directors and deputy directors from more than a dozen of the state’s 67 counties have left or will soon leave their posts, according to an analysis by Spotlight PA and Votebeat. A dozen current and former election officials said that’s no coincidence.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The System Is Not Working: The Lopsided Election Result, Not The Courts, Saved Our Democracy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119839>
Posted on December 21, 2020 2:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=119839> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jonathan Manes<https://www.justsecurity.org/73950/the-system-is-not-working-the-lopsided-election-result-not-the-courts-saved-our-democracy/> at Just Security.
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>

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