Posts Made By: Rod Kaufman

Originally Posted by Jim Moscheck

No Richard, They were getting in front of the bus and slowing down trying to stop it or run it off the road. 

Reminds me of the Peter Fonda movie, "Race With The Devil": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqv6PIH_ymY

"A joint report released last Wednesday by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and MilitiaWatch determined Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon to be at high risk for increased militia activity leading up to and following the election. USA Today reported on the study on Tuesday." 
"The report names nine militias as the “most active” in the U.S. that could take action leading up to or after the election, including Three Percenters, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Light Foot Militia, Civilian Defense Force, American Contingency, Patriot Prayer, Boogaloo Bois and People’s Rights."  
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/523078-study-warns-five-states-at-high-risk-for-election-related-armed-violence-by
I told you Sherman didn't go far enough...

Trump praises his Trumptoids:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/523892-trump-praises-texas-supporters-who-surrounded-biden-harris-bus

Trumptoids speak:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/10/29/trump-biden-voters-accept-election-results-me-orig.cnn

"“Talk of an impending civil war, depending on the election results and the taking back of America have certainly dominated those far-right corners.”
"Burghart said his team has been monitoring the rhetoric at recent large gathering, on social media, walkie talkie apps and on HAM radios."
https://komonews.com/news/elections/law-enforcement-agencies-prepare-for-potential-unrest-after-nov-3-election
and:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/523509-california-governor-preparing-state-for-civil-unrest-following-election

First, of course, it's BS. But let's assume for a moment that it's correct. First, it would make Covid 19 about ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. "Even a 1% mortality rate (99% survival rate) would mean that a disease is 10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu. If everyone in the country contracted COVID-19, that rate would lead to about 3,300,000 American deaths." "the current mortality rate in the U.S. is 5.9%, which puts the survival rate at 94.1%. Johns Hopkins University, which uses the same method, currently lists the U.S. rate at 6%." "But even these researchers acknowledge that during a pandemic, the rate of case fatalities is a "poor measure of the mortality risk of the disease." That’s partly because the actual number of cases is hard to determine without widespread testing." 
The former director of the CDC believes, as do other experts, that the current number of deaths due to Covid 19 is actually much higher than reported so the disease is even more lethal than the figures above, as bad as they are, would indicate.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/07/facebook-posts/facebook-post-shares-flawed-covid-19-survival-stat/

Originally Posted by James Brown

Rod:

The critical question is this:  What does the law say in the applicable state?  

Your favorite source, CNN, says that the law in Minnesota is that ballots must be received by COB on election day.  (Same as Colorado by the way).

"The court found the Minnesota secretary of state's accommodation went against a state law that said ballots delivered by mail to elections officials after 8 p.m. on Election Day should be marked late.

"The Secretary's instructions to count mail-in ballots received up to seven days after Election Day stand in direct contradiction to Minnesota election law governing presidential elections," the ruling stated."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/29/politics/minnesota-mail-in-ballots/index.html


So it looks like we have a duly passed Minnesota law that says the ballots have to be received by COB on election day, but a rogue Secretary of State decided to unilaterally extend that window by a week.  I wonder what party that Secretary of State represents?

In this instance, your "originalist judges" are absolutely correct.  There is nothing in the Constitution that would cause this duly-passed Minnesota law to be unconstitutional.   So the law stands as written.  Score one for the "originalists."  I can imagine an activist judge might say something to the contrary, something along the lines of: "Hey, the plain language of the law is that the ballots have to be received by COB on election day.  But I, in my immense wisdom, am going to unilaterally suspend that law and overrule the legislature because of the pandemic."  

I hope you agree that this hypothetical would be inappropriate judicial activism.

Thanks for posting a very useful example.

Jim

I think the differential point here is, "Simon noted that while ballots received after 8 p.m. on Election Day must be segregated, it is undecided whether those votes ultimately will count toward the election total. Election officials are still allowed to count but not tabulate ballots received after the deadline, so it is possible that there will be two final tallies: ballots that made it in before 8 p.m. and those that didn't, he said."  "Secretary of State Steve Simon noted, in frustration, that oral arguments in the case were held on Tuesday during a conference call, the very last day the Postal Service said a ballot could be postmarked and guaranteed to be delivered by Election Day. “I had hoped and reasoned that if the 8th Circuit was going to change a vitally significant deadline, like acceptance of ballots—if they were inclined to do that, I would hope they would have done it an hour after the hearing, even if it was a one-line order,” Simon said ahead of ruling. “It would be tremendously disruptive at this point … to issue an order overturning Minnesota’s postmark rule.” But the disruption is the point after all." "A previous version of this story incorrectly said the judges ruled the state must reject ballots that arrive after 8 p.m. on Election Day. This story has been updated to reflect that judges predicted ballots received after Election Day could ultimately be invalidated and ordered them to be kept separate." So the ultimate fate of those votes is still undecided at this point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-court-rules-minnesota-must-reject-ballots-received-after-election-day/2020/10/29/85030e76-1a46-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html

Jim, ultimately this whole deal was brought forth by Republicans to thwart the vote. This is the same motivation that moved Abbott to limit the drop off boxes to one per county and now to remove a mask mandate at the polls in Texas so poll workers and voters aren't required to wear a mask which is crazy at a time when new infections in the country are exceeding 75,000 per day. Whatever they can do to inhibit voters they will do. Finally, I looked but I couldn't find the opinion of the dissenting judge in Minnesota and I'm curious what her rationale is for denying the Republican challenge...

Originally Posted by James Brown

Or it was brought by Republicans to support the rule of law. 

How would these alleged Republicans know that the tiny percentage of MN voters who couldn't be bothered to get their votes in on time would skew D anyway?  

Because this is a Republican tactic in multiple states.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi Rod:


The various states have election laws.  The only one I know well is my own.   Ballots must be received by close of business on election day, or the ballots don't count!  That is the law.  If our Secretary of State tried to inject a "postmark by" deadline extension because of Covid, I personally would expect any competent judge to overrule her, because the Secretary of State is not given authority to make, change or overrule the laws.  "Voter suppression" has nothing to do with it.  The law must be enforced as written, if the people don't like the law, they can lobby the legislature to change it.  Heck, in Colorado and I think California, we can change these things directly with a voter initiative.

But there is no way the Secretary of State can unilaterally contradict the legal deadline.  Not for a pandemic, a war, a riot, a hurricane.  Not for anything.

If another state has a duly passed law allowing ballots "postmarked by..." to be counted then fine.  I think it is a stupid law personally, but it must be enforced as enacted.  If the Rs filed a lawsuit to challenge that sort of law, you might have a point.  The only reason I can think of would be voter intimidation.  According to CNN at least, this is not what is happening in MN.

Jim  

Thus far, Republicans have won this one on a technicality in this state. They've initiated it not because they're crusaders for the law but because they don't want as much of the vote counted than otherwise would have been if the postal system wasn't hamstrung by a Trump-appointed sycophant and swamped by 75000-85000 new covid cases per day. The bottom line for the two Republican judges here is that, in their words, the constitution doesn't have a pandemic exclusion. Riight...