The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee recently filed lawsuits against New Jersey and Nevada to prevent expansive vote-by-post efforts in those states.
These high-profile lawsuits make the same argument that Republicans have made in many lesser-known lawsuits filed in the country during the primary season. In all of these lawsuits, Republicans claim that voting by post perpetuates fraud – an argument that President Donald Trump makes every day on various media platforms.
However, study after study has shown that there is no basis for these claims. The opposite is true: voting by post is rarely subject to fraud. Twitter has even drawn warnings on President Trump’s tweets linking vote by email to voter fraud because they are perpetuating false information.
Courts have for the most part sided with Republicans, and in some cases have even accepted the inappropriate fraud allegations. The effect of these statements has been that Americans personally had to vote during the global pandemic, and risk their lives. By filing these lawsuits, Republicans are forcing voters to choose between being safe and exercising their fundamental right to vote in November.
Here is a representative sample of these lawsuits:
• In April, when public health officials were not entirely sure how COVID-19 was distributed, and house-to-house orders were distributed throughout the country, the Republican-led alderman in Wisconsin called for the executive order of Democratic Governor Tony Evers to break-the-post deadlines for the primary election. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin sat with the Republicans.
• That victory was not enough. In a parallel case, the Republicans of Wisconsin secured an opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that all post-in ballots should be postmarked by primary election day. Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared: “I am afraid the court order will result in mass exemption.”
• In Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in multiple lawsuits that postal voting should only be available to actual COVID-19 victims, and not to voters who were afraid of being infected at polling stations. After first losing in court, Paxton publicly threatened in writing, in writing, to prosecute and prosecute any election official who disseminated voting information by mail. This left election officials standing in a quarter because Paxton’s threat was in conflict with a state law mandate that extended Texas’ vote-by-mail measures to all voters.
A federal court has called Paxton’s threats “voter intimidation.” Unintentionally, Paxton successfully appealed both the federal and state court decisions that ruled against him. However, both the Texas Supreme Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sat with Paxton, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a higher appeal on these cases, allowing these judgments to stand.
In a Republican ruling, the Texas Supreme Court ruled: “For the general public, COVID-19 contraction is generally highly irreversible” and that “a lack of immunity alone can not be a probable cause of injury. to health by voting in person. “
But, on July 9, primary day, Texas was in the grip of a massive COVID-19 crisis. For each of the 10 days prior to the primary election, there were record numbers of COVID-19 related hospitalizations in the state. Hospitals in Houston were in danger of running out of hospital beds. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott urged everyone to stay home unless it was an emergency, and issued executive orders to shut down the state. While the pandemic was raging around them, voters in Texas had to vote in person.
• In Missouri, lawsuits were sought by advocacy groups, including the NAACP, to expand the vote through e-mail attempts. A state court sat with Republican officials who vehemently opposed it and held that “fear of illness” did not qualify as a reason to receive a delivery note.
• In Iowa, following a successful primary vote-by-mail on June 2, the Republican legislature sought to prevent the Iowa Secretary of State from conducting future by-vote elections. This was not a lawsuit, but reflects many of the legal actions taken by the GOP throughout the country. In response, a two-party group of local election officials sent a letter to the legislature, stating: ‘The primary 2020 was very successful, based on a variety of metrics in large part due to the steps taken by the secretary. Counties experienced rise as near-record. Election day went very smoothly. Results were quick to obtain. Why would the state want to cripple the process that led to such success? “
Several of the courts discussed above have nevertheless embraced the idea that voting via mail leads to fraud.
For example, in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which sanctioned the Republican opposition to voting by mail, Judge James C. Ho wrote a gratuity-free supplementary opinion, focusing only on e-mail ballots. Likewise, the Missouri trial court that refused to expand the pool of voters who could vote by post on long-term voter fraud to justify its decision.
Without explanation or evidence to the contrary, these decisions erase scientific findings, altering the unsubstantiated and discredited claims related to voting by mail to fraud. This gives these flawed legal decisions enormous power to influence how Americans vote this November, independent of the power of the COVID-19 virus.
Judges who hold presidencies over newly submitted Republican National Committee and trials for Trump campaign will no doubt look at those advices because of the agreement in claims. Although those decisions do not have to follow the letter in New Jersey and Nevada, they still represent a body of law that judges must consider. Even flawed judicial opinions have the power to shape the future.
Penny Venetis is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Rutgers University Newark
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