Sunday, January 31, 2021

12/10/20: The Newest Election Lawsuit is "The Big One"

"Our Country needs a victory!” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “...How can you have a presidency when a vast majority think the election was RIGGED?” 

The nation's federal judges have been sweeping Trump's election lawsuits out of the corridors of justice for a month now, ever since Biden won. There've been about 50 legal actions so far, but no headway towards Trump's goal of overturning the election results. 


The latest lawsuit was filed directly with the Supreme Court by Texas's scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. 


Paxton's suit charges that four states that made pandemic-related changes in election laws bungled it because the changes weren't approved by their state legislators. The election results, therefore, were unconstitutional, and didn't they want Trump to have a second term anyway? 


The grandstanding US Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, offered to argue the case before the Court, and on Wednesday, Trump took him up on it. Maybe that'll make the Supreme Court think twice before they drop-kick the case down the marble steps. But not necessarily. 


Paxton's lawsuit is not winning admiration among legal scholars -- or, for that matter, statisticians. Here's a quote from the filing: "The probability of former Vice President Biden's winning the popular vote in the four Defendant states -- Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- independently given Trump's early lead in those states as of 3 a.m. on November 4, 2020, is less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000. For former Vice President Biden to win these four States collectively, the odds of that event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power ... " And on it goes. These numbers came from a professor of economics (or ex-professor, according to Wikipedia). 


"'No Chance of Success': Lawyers Demolish Ken Paxton's Latest Election Lawsuit," is how Law.com headlined its analysis. But an article by Trump fan J.D. Rucker on NoQReport.com disagreed. It was subtitled "I'm no math whiz, but that's a whole lot of zeroes." 


The next few days should be interesting. 


Do you think the Supreme Court will agree to listen to the case? If not, will they reject the case with a 1-sentence statement, as they did with a previous Trump case? 


Why would Ted Cruz actually want to argue this case? 


Is this the final lawsuit, or will Trump keep filing garbage lawsuits for as long as his supporters are willing to donate money?


https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Trump-Ken-Paxton-election-challenge-the-big-one-15788005.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HC_AfternoonReport&utm_term=news&utm_content=headlines&sid=5dc30632fc942d1f403e32c0

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