A federal judge rejected a lawsuit from President Trump’s reelection campaign to limit the amount of ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania, handing Democrats a win in their effort to boost voter turnout in the key swing state.
U.S. District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan, who was appointed to bench by Trump, wrote in a 138-page ruling that the GOP had been “speculative” that the drop boxes and other efforts to expand access to voting would be vulnerable to fraud, saying the Trump campaign’s claims to injury are not “concrete.”
“While plaintiffs may not need to prove actual voter fraud, they must at least prove that such fraud is ‘certainly impending,’” he said. “They haven’t met that burden.”
“[T]he Court finds that the election regulations put in place by the General Assembly and implemented by Defendants do not significantly burden any right to vote. They are rational. They further important state interests. They align with the Commonwealth’s elaborate election-security measures. They do not run afoul of the United States Constitution. They will not otherwise be second-guessed by this Court,” he continued.
Ranjan also shot down the campaign’s effort to reverse a Pennsylvania rule that county boards of elections not reject ballots “where the voter’s signature does not match the one on file.”
The ruling sends the matters back to state courts, which have thus far said Republicans’ allegations of widespread voter fraud and the vulnerability of mail-in voting remain flimsy, arguments Ranjan appeared to agree with.
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#BREAKING: Federal judge rejects Trump suit to block ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania https://t.co/xuA8rsrZRj pic.twitter.com/6y8UINKeN1
— The Hill (@thehill) October 10, 2020
Well, it’s not over yet. The campaign will appeal to the Third Circuit and if they lose, to SCOTUS. Plus some elements of the suit will go back to state courts which are likely to rule against the campaign since they already did once.
And I believe there are other suits from the campaign pending in PA, including some filed by others, possibly in conjunction with the campaign or at Trump’s behest.
This election will be litigated up to November 3 and even beyond if Trump loses. It will be a nightmare of epic proportions. Trump needs to win re-election to avoid the investigations and criminal proceedings certain to come alive once he is out of office. So he is going to fight to stay in office for as long as possible.
Trump has to be voted out.
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