7 reasons why Trump lost his farcical final Supreme Court election challenge

12/11/2020 9:39 am ET • Nellie English

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UPDATE: The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s absurd lawsuit to overthrow the results of the election. But the fact that a majority of the House GOP caucus has backed this seditious threat to our Country means that now Democrats are truly “the pro democracy party.”

President Trump has submitted a brief to the Supreme Court seeking to intervene in . Paxton — now backed by 17 states — is claiming that the votes from four swing states that Biden won should not be counted. This is the same lawsuit that legal experts and former Republican officials have called “utter garbage,” and “laughable.” As one Twitter user put it, the document appears to be a “brief-length version of the President’s Twitter account.”

I’m reading through Trump’s new Supreme court brief, and it’s amazing that lawyers are permitted to lie like this. Trump’s lawyer claims there was “chaos” on election night, and the days which followed. What chaos? Especially election night. We had chaos on election night? pic.twitter.com/RrX3U0EOb7

— John Aravosis 🇺🇸🇬🇷🏳️‍🌈 (@aravosis) December 10, 2020

The lawyer who filed the brief, John Eastman, is effectively arguing that millions of votes should be thrown out — most of them Democrat. Yet it appeared even Trump’s lawyer can’t get his facts right. Speaking on behalf of the President, Eastman made a series of baseless claims that are factually incorrect. A true representative of Donald Trump.

The attorney who wrote Trump's filing to SCOTUS is John C. Eastman, a law prof at Chapman University. Where have you heard that name before?

Maybe from his Newsweek column arguing that Kamala Harris may not be a citizen eligible for the vice presidency.

h/t @citizenwillis pic.twitter.com/fR306CbA5W

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 9, 2020

Here are 7 lies from the Supreme Court brief.

The mysterious Michigan absentee ballots

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Claim: According to the brief: “In Michigan, the Secretary of State illegally flooded the state with absentee ballot applications mailed to every registered voter despite the fact that state law strictly limits the ballot application process.”

Fact: Neither President Trump nor White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany have been able to specify what exactly is illegal about the Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sending absentee ballot applications to registered voters. Michigan residents were allowed to mail them to each other. In fact, the absentee ballot was available online for anyone to use.

Florida and Ohio

Flickr / DonkeyHotey

Claim: The brief alleges that “President Trump prevailed on nearly every historical indicia of success in presidential elections. For example, he won both Florida and Ohio; no candidate in history—Republican or Democrat—has ever lost the election after winning both States.”

Fact: This is simply not true. In 1960, President Nixon lost the election to John F. Kennedy even though Nixon had won Florida and Ohio.

And here’s another lie — or some really lousy lawyering — the claim that no candidate has ever lost the election after having won Ohio and Florida. Nixon did in 1960. pic.twitter.com/j8Fkb86KTb

— John Aravosis 🇺🇸🇬🇷🏳️‍🌈 (@aravosis) December 10, 2020

Pennsylvania signatures

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Claim: Within the brief, it states that: “Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State issued guidance purporting to suspend the signature verification requirements, in direct violation of state law.”

Fact: The signature guidance came from Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar. This has already been upheld as legal as there is as yet no evidence in state law to state the contrary.

In October, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold the Boockvar signature guidance. The court stated, “We decline to read a signature comparison requirement into the plain and unambiguous language of the Election Code.”

A Trump-appointed federal judge similarly ruled the Boockvar guidance was legal. District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan ruled “After carefully considering the parties’ arguments and the relevant law, the Court finds that the plain language of the Election Code imposes no requirement for signature comparison for mail-in and absentee ballots and applications. In other words, the Secretary’s guidance is consistent with the Election Code, and creates no vote-dilution problems.”

The Wisconsin drop boxes

People standing in line to vote wearing face masks

Screenshot / YouTube

Claim: According to the brief, “in Wisconsin, the largest cities all deployed hundreds of unmanned, unsecured absentee ballot drop boxes that were all invalid means of returning absentee votes under state law.”

Fact: The ballot boxes in Wisconsin were anchored to the ground, subjected to 24-hour video surveillance, sealed against tampering and secured in other ways. Cities in Wisconsin adhered to the guidance from the state election commission.

No real evidence, no proof, 50 lawsuits thrown out of court because of no proof. 106 Republicans have violated their oath to the Constitution and should resign #Sedition #WeWillNotForget

— Vicky Allen (@vallen67) December 11, 2020

Parking lot fraud

A sticker on an HVAC tube that says "Fraud"

Flickr / Michele Hubacek

Claim: The brief claimed, without providing evidence, that the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia used policies that were open to fraud. One accusation was that “leaving ballot boxes in public parking lots invites fraud.”

Fact: This is not true. Official ballot drop boxes are created in a unique way to prevent tampering, theft, or any type of fraud and ensure that votes can be received securely. They are designed with anti-tampering measures, secured to the ground, and regularly monitored with video surveillance. There is no evidence of fraud associated with the ballot boxes.

The ‘Bellwether’ Counties

Flickr / DonkeyHotey

Claim: The brief argues that because Trump won strategic counties, he should have won the election. It asserts: “[Trump] 18 of the country’s 19 so-called ‘bellwether’ counties—counties whose vote, historically, almost always goes for the candidate who wins the election.”

Fact: While it is true that Trump won 18 out of 19 of the counties that voted for the winning candidate in every election from 1980 to 2016, it is false to assert that this is evidence of fraud. Voting demographics and political demands change, and once “bellwether” counties can cease to be the areas that decide the election outcome.

Even if this were true, the logic is nonsense - “As it was, so must it always be.” Demographics change with moving populations, voting patterns with much increased mail-in voting. And he should see how he lost by looking at the states he lost, using maths.

— James Miller (@james_in_snow) December 9, 2020

Poll watchers

A photograph of a voter polling station.

Unsplash

Claim: To demonstrate election fraud, the brief summoned a statement from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in which he observed the “prohibition of local independent observers at polling stations” to prove that the election there was “not free and fair.” Except Mike Pompeo was speaking about the election in Belarus.

Fact: To use a presidential election in Belarus to argue fraud during the 2020 election between Trump and Biden is misleading and deceitful. The treatment of poll watchers in Belarus does not prove anything in the United States.

Trump has repeatedly asserted that Republican poll watchers were prevented from observing the count. There is zero evidence to back his claims. Both Democrat and Republican poll watchers were allowed access to counting locations. Read more about this groundless theory here.