Mediaboss Marketing

With one of our political parties trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election, we are way farther down that road now than we were before the election, or a year ago, she told me. Republicans have been going down that road all through Trumps term, but this is the parting gift, which is more extreme than what has happened before.

Adam Serwer: If you didnt vote for Trump, your vote is fraudulent

Republicans widespread enlistment in Trumps efforts follows years in which officials have advanced hundreds of state-level measures making it more difficult to vote; engaged in extraordinary legislative maneuvering to deny former President Barack Obama the opportunity to fill a vacant U.S. Supreme Court seat; and have either looked the other way or abetted Trump in a series of actions shredding democratic norms, including attempting to weaponize the Postal Service, tilt the results of the census, and pressure the Justice Department to investigate his opponents.

Polling has consistently found that the majority of Republican voters believe, without evidence, that the election was stolen. One academic study, based on a national survey conducted early this year, found that a stunningly large share of self-identified Republicans endorsed antidemocratic propositions such as The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. GOP behavior during this postelection period suggests that these are not abstract sentiments: The secretaries of state in Georgia and Arizona, who have rejected Trumps claims of fraud, have faced death threats, and a mob of armed protesters gathered last weekend outside the home of Michigans secretary of state, whos also stood by her states results.

Geoffrey Kabaservice, the director of political studies at the libertarian Niskanen Center, told me he sees a fateful watershed in the partys postelection deference to Trump. Once the Republican Party got into this idea that voter suppression was the way to go, once it stopped believing it was the majority partyand the entire American project was at stake, and Democrats would ruin the country if they hold powerthen anything would be permitted, including antidemocratic means, said Kabaservice, who is also the author of Rule and Ruin, a history of moderate Republicans. This was all before Trump came on the scene, so Trump simply furthered what was there.

The Republican Party, without acknowledging or realizing it, has become an antidemocratic force, he added.

Some key local Republican officials have conspicuously resisted Trumps pressure, including Doug Ducey and Brian Kemp, the Republican governors of Arizona and Georgia, respectively. In Michigan, a young GOP member of the states canvassing board voted to uphold the states results recording a decisive Biden win there. And many Republican-appointed federal judges, as well as some elected at the state level, have joined in rejecting Trump lawyers unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud.

Read the original here:
The GOP's Antidemocratic Bid to Overturn the Election - The Atlantic

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

On November 30, Georgias Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, held a press conference to refute the fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation spread by Trump supporters that the election was rigged.

But at the same time, Raffensperger announced he was opening an investigation into four progressive voter registration groups who he claimed sought to register ineligible, out-of-state, or deceased voters.

Establishment Georgia Republicans like Raffensperger have been widely lauded in the media for standing up to President Donald Trumps baseless election claims. But with far less fanfare, theyve continued to perpetuate a widely discredited narrative of voter fraud in order to build support for new restrictions on voting that will make it harder for Georgiansparticularly in Democratic-leaning demographicsto cast ballots in future elections.

With control of the Senate hanging on Georgias two runoff elections on January 5, Trumps actions are already making voting more difficult in the state, with key early voting sites closing as the recounts demanded by the Trump campaign have stretched election officials thin. But the narrative being pushed by Raffensperger and other state leaders could have much longer-lasting implications, spurring new restrictions that could impede voting in the suddenly competitive state for years to come.

One of the groups Raffensperger is investigating is the New Georgia Project, which was founded by Stacey Abrams in 2013 to register young people and voters of color in the state and was chaired by Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock until February. The group, Raffensperger said on November 30, sent voter registration applications to New York City and would be held responsible if it encouraged illegal voting.

Ns Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, told me the accusation was ridiculous and not true. She said the group had sent postcards to volunteers, including in New York City, who wanted to send letters to eligible Georgia voters encouraging them to register and turn out on January 5. Their allegation is we are trying to register voters out of state, which we are not, she said. Its flimsy as helltheir evidence is thinner than a single strand of hair.

A few days later, Raffsenperger held another press conference, where he held up postcards that had been sent by the group to his son who passed away two years ago, encouraging him to register to vote. We have proof in our own home, he said.

Ufot said the mailing had been sent to Raffsenpergers son based on faulty data in Georgias voter file or other databases used to find unregistered voters and was not a nefarious attempt to register dead people to vote. Nonetheless, Trump supporters seized on the investigations as evidence that the voter fraud they claimed existed was now real. Fox News called it a formal acknowledgement that there was some impropriety in the voting process.

When you hear reports like that of whats happening in Georgia, it makes your blood boil, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told the network. This sounds like fraudPeople need to be arrested here.

It shakes peoples faith in the process, Ufot said of the allegations against her group. Hes looking for ways to shrink the electorate and construct additional hurdles that people have to clear to participate.

While Raffsenperger has defended the integrity of Georgias elections system, he and Gov. Brian Kemp have called for voter ID requirements to be extended to mail ballots.Under the proposal, voters would have to include a copy of a government-issued identification along with their mail-in ballotsan extra procedural hurdle than undermines the purpose of mail voting, particularly for people with mobility issues or a lack of access to printers and copiers. Republicans specifically declined to require identification for mail voting in 2005, when they believed more Republicans than Democrats would vote by mail. Voters casting their ballots in person must show a photo ID, and we should consider applying that same standard to mail-in balloting, Kemp said last week.

Leaders in the Republican-controlled state legislature have gone much further, vowing to take up sweeping restrictions on mail voting when they convene in a new session next year after the runoff. These measures wouldmake mail voting available only to people with a valid reason, ban drop boxes for mail voting, and make it easier to reject mail ballots.

Though Republicans have long touted mail voting in Georgia, this year Democratsand Black voters in particularvoted by mail at much higher rates than GOP voters after Trump attacked the process. Georgia House Speaker David Ralston predicted in the spring that mail voting will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.

There was no evidence of fraudulent mail voting in Georgia or any other state in 2020, but the mere perception of such fraud among Trump supporters is now enough to justify new restrictions on voting. The Georgia Senate Republicans have heard the calls of millions of Georgians who have raised deep and heartfelt concerns that state law has been violated and our elections process abused in our November 3, 2020 elections, the state senate GOP caucus said in astatement on Tuesday. We will fix this. Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchsargued that voter ID requirements were needed for mail ballots to prevent candidates from claiming the election was rigged.

We have a Republican Party that is singularly focused on disinformation warfare around nonexistent voter fraud, Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of the voting rights group Fair Fight and Abrams 2018 gubernatorial campaign manager, told me. We can look at state after state in the country where those disinformation narratives are directly connected to restrictions on the right to vote.

Theres a long history of this tactic in Georgia. In 2014, when he was secretary of state, Kemp first opened an investigation into voter registration drives by the New Georgia Project, which Abrams was overseeing at the time. Were just not going to put up with fraud, Kemp said. The group submitted 85,000 voter registration applications that year, and roughly 50.06 percent of the totalwere deemed to be forgeries submitted by independent contractors.(Under Georgia law, the New Georgia Project was required to submit all applications it received, regardless of whether they were legitimate.) Kemps own investigator concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and no one was charged. Yet Kemp continued to raise the specter of fraud to erect new barriers to voting, such as removing voters from the rolls, blocking registration drives, and rejecting mail ballots.

After an array of voting restrictions disproportionately disenfranchised Abrams supporters in 2018, access to the ballot was expanded in Georgia in 2020, allowing for record turnout and the emergence of a diverse coalition that helped Joe Biden win the state. Abrams is expected to run for governor in 2022, and Georgia Republicans are already plotting how to prevent a Democrat from carrying the state again.

This feels, in a lot of ways, like the last stand for white supremacy and the Republican Party, says Ufot. They are going to break the machinery of democracy on their way out the door.

Already, some voters may have fewer opportunities to vote in the crucial Senate elections on January 5 than they did in November. Four of the ten most populous counties in the state are closing early voting locations for the runoffs. That includes Cobb County, the third-largest county in the state, which Biden won by 14 points.The county is cutting the number of early voting sites from 11 to 5, consolidating four voting locations in the southern part of the county that are home to many Black and Latino voters into just one. During early voting for the November election, some residents waited up to 10 hours to vote in Cobb County.

Cobb County elections director Janine Eveler says Trumps actions are already having an impact on the runoff elections. The reason six of the countys early voting sites are closing, she says, is that she cant recruit enough people to staff the early voting sites, given all the people working on the recounts Trump requested. (Amid an outcry, the county agreed to reopen two polling sites for the last week of early voting.)

But whatever effect the closure of polling placeswill have on the runoffs, its a mere preview of the much broader voter suppression strategy Georgia Republicanseven those who stood up to Trumpwill employ next year.

Read more:
Georgia Republicans Are Using Fake Claims of Fraud to Make It Harder to Vote - Mother Jones

All 50 states have officially certified the results of the 2020 presidential election as of this week, reaffirming what has been known for over a month now: Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

And yet, on Thursday, 106 Republican members of Congress signed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to allow the state of Texas to file a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the election results in the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, all of which President Donald Trump lost. On Friday, Republicans filed an updated brief to include an additional 20 members.

Several hours later on Friday evening, the court rejected Texas's challenge, saying the state lacked standing to sue.

With electors scheduled to meet on Monday to officially name Biden the victor, it was a long shot that the court would step in. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court justices denied a Republican effort to challenge a 2019 Pennsylvania law that expanded mail-in voting.

Among the representatives who signed on are several members who have just won races in the very states whose elections they now allege are so rife with "irregularities" that they want the court to throw out the results. There is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud.

Here are their names:

Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisianas 4th Congressional District

Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabamas 6th Congressional District

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisianas 1st Congressional District

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohios 4th Congressional District

Rep. Ralph Abraham of Louisianas 5th Congressional District

Rep. Rick W. Allen of Georgias 12th Congressional District

Rep. James R. Baird of Indianas 4th Congressional District

Rep. Jim Banks of Indianas 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigans 1st Congressional District

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizonas 5th Congressional District

Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Floridas 12th Congressional District

Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolinas 9th Congressional District

Rep. Mike Bost of Illinoiss 12th Congressional District

Rep. Kevin Brady of Texass 8th Congressional District

Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabamas 5th Congressional District

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorados 4th Congressional District

Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolinas 13th Congressional District

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessees 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Michael C. Burgess of Texass 26th Congressional District

Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabamas 1st Congressional District

Rep. Ken Calvert of Californias 42nd Congressional District

Rep. Earl L. Buddy Carter of Georgias 1st Congressional District

Rep. Ben Cline of Virginias 6th Congressional District

Rep. Michael Cloud of Texass 27th Congressional District

Rep. Mike Conaway of Texass 11th Congressional District

Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansass 1st Congressional District

Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texass 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Floridas 25th Congressional District

Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolinas 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Neal P. Dunn of Floridas 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesotas 6th Congressional District

Rep. Ron Estes of Kansass 4th Congressional District

Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgias 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Bill Flores of Texass 17th Congressional District

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraskas 1st Congressional District

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolinas 5th Congressional District

Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idahos 1st Congressional District

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Floridas 1st Congressional District

Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montanas at-large congressional district

Rep. Bob Gibbs of Ohios 7th Congressional District

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texass 1st Congressional District

Rep. Lance Gooden of Texass 5th Congressional District

Rep. Sam Graves of Missouris 6th Congressional District

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessees 7th Congressional District

Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippis 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Andy Harris of Marylands 1st Congressional District

Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouris 4th Congressional District

Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahomas 1st Congressional District

Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisianas 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Trey Hollingsworth of Indianas 9th Congressional District

Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolinas 8th Congressional District

Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigans 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohios 6th Congressional District

Rep. John Joyce of Pennsylvanias 13th Congressional District

Rep. Fred Keller of Pennsylvanias 12th Congressional District

Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvanias 16th Congressional District

Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippis 1st Congressional District

Rep. Steve King of Iowas 4th Congressional District

Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessees 8th Congressional District

Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinoiss 18th Congressional District

Rep. Doug LaMalfa of Californias 1st Congressional District

Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorados 5th Congressional District

Rep. Robert E. Latta of Ohios 5th Congressional District

Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizonas 8th Congressional District

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouris 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Kenny Marchant of Texass 24th Congressional District

Rep. Roger Marshall of Kansass 1st Congressional District

Rep. Tom McClintock of Californias 4th Congressional District

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washingtons 5th Congressional District

Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvanias 9th Congressional District

Rep. Carol D. Miller of West Virginias 3rd Congressional District

Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigans 4th Congressional District

Rep. Alex X. Mooney of West Virginias 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahomas 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Gregory Murphy of North Carolinas 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washingtons 4th Congressional District

Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolinas 5th Congressional District

Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvanias 10th Congressional District

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvanias 14th Congressional District

Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolinas 7th Congressional District

Rep. John Rose of Tennessees 6th Congressional District

Rep. David Rouzer of North Carolinas 7th Congressional District

Rep. John Rutherford of Floridas 4th Congressional District

Rep. Austin Scott of Georgias 8th Congressional District

Rep. Mike Simpson of Idahos 2nd Congressional District

Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraskas 3rd Congressional District

Rep. Jason Smith of Missouris 8th Congressional District

Rep. Ross Spano of Floridas 15th Congressional District

Rep. Elise Stefanik of New Yorks 21st Congressional District

Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvanias 15th Congressional District

Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsins 7th Congressional District

Rep. William Timmons of South Carolinas 4th Congressional District

Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouris 2nd Congressional District

More:
Here Are The Names Of 126 Members Of The House Who Refuse To Accept That Biden Won - BuzzFeed News

Nearly 160 million Americans voted in the 2020 elections, by far the most in history and a level of turnout not seen in over a century, representing an extraordinary milestone of civic engagement in a year marked by a devastating pandemic, record unemployment and political unrest.

With all but three states having completed their final count, and next weeks deadline for final certification of the results approaching, the sheer volume of Americans who actually voted in November was eye-opening: 66.7 percent of the voting-eligible population, according to the U.S. Election Project, a nonpartisan website run by Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who tracks county-level data.

It is the highest percentage since 1900, when the voting pool was much smaller, and easily surpasses two high-water marks of the modern era: the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy and the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Since the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote and roughly doubled the voting eligible population, turnout had never surpassed 64 percent.

The shifts that led to this years surge in voting, in particular the broad expansion of voting options and the prolonged period for casting ballots, could forever alter elections and political campaigns in America, providing a glimpse into the electoral future.

A backlash from the right could prevent that, however. In many ways, the increase in voting is what Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are now openly campaigning against in their floundering bid to overturn his clear loss to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. whose popular vote lead grew to seven million on Friday. Republicans have portrayed the burgeoning voting ranks as nefarious and the expanded access to voting options as ripe for fraud despite the fact that the record turnout provided them numerous victories down ballot.

Though Mr. Trump and the party have not managed to prove a single claim of fraud in the courts where they and their allies have lost or withdrawn dozens of cases Republicans at the state level are vowing to enact a new round of voting restrictions to prevent what they claim without evidence is widespread fraud.

The swell in voting this year was powered by a polarizing presidential race and the many steps that election officials took to make voting safer and therefore easier during the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 94 percent of voters said that voting in the November election was easy.

That ease in voting could also be read as access. The expansion of vote by mail, early voting, online registration and online ballot requests broke down many of the traditional barriers that sometimes kept people away from the ballot box. Others simply used long-existing laws as they sought to deliver a verdict on Mr. Trumps four tumultuous years in office.

The expansion of voting options also created a fall election season rather than a sole Election Day, a change that is likely to endure and force political campaigns to restructure fall operations with a greater emphasis on getting out the vote over a period of weeks.

We opened the doors to access, said Adrian Fontes, the top election official in Maricopa County, the largest county in Arizona, where, for the first time, more than 80 percent of the eligible population voted in the general election. It also flipped from Republican to Democratic for the first time in 72 years.

I think the most telling number is the 165,000 in-person Election Day voters, Mr. Fontes said about voter turnout in Maricopa County. When you get over two million people casting a ballot and less than 200,000 of them are actually walking in on Election Day and casting a fresh ballot, thats important.

In interviews, election officials tempered their enthusiasm over this years turnout by acknowledging several only-in-2020 factors. Mr. Trump is a unique public figure who drew considerable personal enmity from voters opposed to him. He ran at a time of extreme economic and social upheaval because of the pandemic. And lockdown orders and mass furloughs and layoffs gave Americans more time to consume news both on the internet and through the old-fashioned network newscasts, which had their highest viewership in more than a decade increasing their engagement with the election.

Voters really thought about how they were going to vote, and many had a plan and executed on that plan, said Kim Wyman, the secretary of state in Washington.

Although election experts caution against viewing the expansion of mail voting as the sole driver of turnout, it is clear that states that increased mail balloting or went to a complete vote-by-mail system had the highest participation. States that did not offer expansive vote-by-mail options were on the lower end of the scale.

Hawaii, for instance, had the lowest voter participation in 2012 and 2016. But last year, it passed a universal vote-by-mail system, and last month, it experienced the highest voting increase in the country. Early voting increased there by nearly 111 percent compared with 2016, and the states turnout of 57.5 percent was up by more than a third over all.

Other states that encouraged voters to use existing mail options also saw their records increase. In Minnesota, which had the highest percentage turnout in the country at 79.96 percent, election officials mailed out ballot applications to every registered voter and ran an $830,000 voter education advertising program to explain options already on the books.

There was no huge legal shift in the legal terrain, or some new method of voting that was not on the books before, said Steve Simon, the secretary of state in Minnesota. This was emphasizing and showcasing an option that had been there for a long time.

In a sense, the pandemic brought with it the realization of a long-held dream of voting rights advocates. For decades, they have sought to increase turnout by making voting easier through provisions such as day-of-vote registration, early voting and voting by mail.

Their goal was to help the country overcome a stubborn, national problem: For the better part of the past century, fewer than 60 percent of eligible voters have participated in national elections, and in some years, turnout has been far lower ranking the United States voter participation rate well below that of most of the developed world.

Democrats have been generally supportive of efforts to increase turnout. Polls and population data have repeatedly shown that the voters most affected by the difficulties of in-person, Election Day voting transient workers, people who move often or low-wage single parents who cant easily wait in long lines at polls on a Tuesday traditionally vote more for Democrats than for Republicans.

Similarly, polling and census data show that Black Americans, Hispanics and young people important elements of the Democratic coalition are more likely to be nonvoters than are older white people, a majority of whom regularly vote for Republican presidential candidates.

The introduction of same-day registration and early voting, for instance, contributed to a surge in participation by Black voters in North Carolina in 2008, helping make Mr. Obama the first Democrat to win there since 1976. Republicans in statehouses there and elsewhere have spent the years since trying to place new restrictions on voting, at times running afoul of the courts.

In Harris County, home to Houston and 4.7 million residents, election officials opened up drive-through voting sites across the county as a safe way to vote during a pandemic. More than 130,000 voters used the option. County officials also created multiple 24-hour voting sites for shift workers, and roughly 10,000 voters used them to cast their ballots.

A good chunk of them told us that they would not have voted any other way, that this made voting possible for them, said Chris Hollins, the clerk for Harris County.

Voting rights advocates have long viewed vote by mail as an important remedy for low turnout, but only with changes that would make it easier without compromising security. In many states, absentee voting has come with certain strings such as requirements for excuses, witness signatures or even notarization.

Colorado, Utah, Washington State, Oregon and Hawaii have moved to nearly universal, mail-in voting systems and have had their turnout rates rise without any significant instances of fraud or irregularities.

When we see vote by mail increase in any state, we simultaneously see a turnout increase, said Amber McReynolds, chief executive of the National Vote at Home Institute and an architect of the vote-by-mail system in Colorado. Its about making the process more accessible.

Mr. McDonald, the professor, said that the wider embrace of voting by mail could have a significant effect on down-ballot elections, which traditionally have lower turnout; high propensity voters, he said, would be more likely to vote in local, municipal or off-year elections if a ballot arrived at their homes.

Almost as soon as the coronavirus spread throughout the United States, Democrats pushed for the easier vote-by-mail provisions, arguing, for instance, that the acquisition of the witness signatures could be difficult during a pandemic, particularly for at-risk older voters who live alone.

Democrats in Congress sought to make a similar push nationally, but they ran into stiff opposition from Mr. Trump, who gave rare public voice to the idea that Republicans dont want to make voting easier because that would make it harder for them to win. They had things levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again, he said in March.

In fact, Mr. Trumps logic that increased mail-in voting would automatically help Democrats proved flawed. Several academic studies have found that mail voting does not necessarily give one party an advantage over another. In Georgia, for instance, the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said that Mr. Trump would have won his state had he not dissuaded his own voters from using mail ballots.

Georgia, which voted for a Democrat for president for the first time in nearly 30 years, had 67 percent turnout.

Of course, even as barriers to voting were toppled and a broad voter education effort spilled across newspapers, cable news and social media, some political operatives saw the expansion of voting as rooted in the singular force that dominated American politics for the past four years.

Two words, said Robby Mook, the former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, in an email. DONALD TRUMP.

Excerpt from:
Republicans Pushed to Restrict Voting. Millions of Americans Pushed Back. - The New York Times

(*This story was updated at 9:37 a.m. on 12/6/20. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Judge Kevin Brobson was a Pennsylvania State Police trooper. His father served as a Pennsylvania State Police trooper)

Pennsylvanias Commonwealth Court has been a big player in the ongoing attempts by the Trump campaign and other Republicans to overturn the states election results or invalidate ballots.

But thus far, the Republican-dominated court has had all of its 2020 election-related decisions overturned or vacated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, despite conservatives like 17th Congressional District candidate Sean Parnell portraying the court decisions as victories.

Take, for instance, Judge Patricia McCulloughs Nov. 25 order for Pennsylvania officials to halt the certification process for election results. It came one day after Gov. Tom Wolf certified the states results and its coveted 20 Electoral College votes for former Vice President Joe Biden. U.S. Rep.Mike Kelly, R-16th District, argued the legislatures decision to allow no-excuse, mail-in voting violated the states constitution.

Wolf and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar appealed McCulloughs ruling to the state Supreme Court, which dismissed the case with prejudice. The court said the petitioners, who include Kelly and Parnell, wholost this year to U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17th District, didnt bring their case in a timely manner and failing to certify the results would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voters.

The want of due diligence demonstrated in this matter is unmistakable, the court wrote in its majority opinion.

Thats a fairly stern ruling from the states high court. In addition to McCullough, another Commonwealth Court judge, Kevin Brobson, recently ruled in favor of a Republican state Senate candidate, who was seeking that disputed mail-in ballots not be counted. That ruling, like McCollughs, was also overturned by the state Supreme Court. The states highest court currently has five justices elected as Democrats and two justices elected as Republicans.

But the lack of staying power in the Commonwealth Courts decisions hasnt stopped pro-Trump conservatives from heralding this and other Commonwealth Court decisions to create the impression that their side is winning. And the Republican judges on the Commonwealth Court that have issued the highest-profile rulings in the post-election legal battles have seen other big decisions swiftly overturned by a higher court. So what else do we know about McCullough and Brobson and Pennsylvanias Commonwealth Court?

Judges on Commonwealth Court serve 10-year terms, and the nine-judge body hears appeals of decisions from state agencies and some Courts of Common Pleas decisions. There are two appellate courts in Pennsylvania, Superior Court and Commonwealth Court, and decisions those courts make can often be appealed to the highest court in the state, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Seven of the nine current judges on Commonwealth Court were elected as Republicans, as was Senior Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter.

With one election barely over, state lawmakers look to make fixes ahead of the next one

McCullough, elected to the Commonwealth Court as a Republican in 2009, was also the dissenting voice on the Commonwealth Court in another Trump-election-related lawsuit prior to the election. Before being elected to Commonwealth Court, McCullough served as an attorney for 28 years, representing clients like the University of Pittsburgh. She also served as the executive director of Catholic Charities for years beforeresigning in 2007.

In October, the Trump campaign argued that poll watchers in Philadelphia should be allowed to observe at satellite locations.

Judge Gary Glazer of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas ruled that the satellite offices didnt qualify as polling places and that the state Election Code contains no provision that expressly grants the Campaign and its representatives a right to serve as watchers at satellite offices of the Board of Elections. Satellite election offices were established in Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania counties prior to Election Day to allow people alternative locations to register to vote and apply for and return mail-in ballots.

Commonwealth Court judges Ellen Ceisler (a Democrat) and Leadbetter affirmed Glazers ruling in the courts October 23rd decision. But McCullough wrote that she emphatically dissented with the majority opinion.

Pa. House Republicans strike out on last-minute push to pressure Wolf to rescind election results, report

McCullough wrote in her dissent that Glazer and the Commonwealth Court judges effectively deprive both presidential candidates, and by extension, every party and candidate, of their statutory right to have poll watchers present at places where electors cast and submit votes in person and in numbers unparalleled in our times.

Philadelphia election commissioners argued that the Trump campaign was trying tointimidate the citys overwhelmingly Democratic voters. In the end, Philadelphia ended up increasing its margin of Trump votes compared to 2016, even though the poll watchers werent allowed at satellite voting locations.

But McCullough isnt the only Commonwealth Court Judge providing favorable rulings to Republicans, just to have them overturned shortly thereafter.

Judge Brobson also has been in the spotlight with the Trump campaign election challenges. *Before serving as a judge, Brobson worked as a Harrisburg-based attorney. While campaigning in 2009 in Stroudsburg, he boasted about only representing private entities as an attorney, and said the government has plenty of counsel.

Brobson wrote the majority opinion in the courts Nov. 18 ruling that some 2,300 mail-in-ballots in the45th Senatorial Districtshould not be counted because they lacked handwritten dates.

The letter of the law, Brobson wrote, required the votes to be thrown out, and by not doing so it would be absolving [voters] of their responsibility to execute their ballots in accordance with law, even as he acknowledged we realize that our decision in this case means that some votes will not be counted.

But once again, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the Commonwealth Court decision. Justice Christine Donohue wrote in the majority opinion that failures to include a handwritten name, address, or date in the voter declaration on the back of the outer envelope, while constituting technical violations of the Election Code, do not warrant the wholesale disenfranchisement of thousands of Pennsylvania voters.

Even federal Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan, a Trump-appointee,rejected Republican candidate Nicole Ziccarellis requestfor a restraining order, saying it would disenfranchise potentially thousands of voters, and that the ballots had arrived on time and were otherwise without errors.

Brobsons ruling gathered less attention from national outlets since it only pertained to a state Senate race, but if his decision were not overruled and the mail-in ballots were not counted, Ziccarelli would almost certainly be in the lead. Instead with the votes counted, state Sen. Jim Brewster (D-McKeesport) holds a narrow lead.

Prior to that ruling, Brobson was best known for his 2017 ruling on Pennsylvanias heavily gerrymandered Congressional district maps. He ruled that while those districts favored Republicans, the Democrats who sued had not demonstrated a legal standard for creating nonpartisan maps. A few weeks later, his decision wasstruck down by the state Supreme Court, who found that the Congressional map represented an illegal partisan gerrymandering that favored Republicans.

In 2019, some of Brobsons campaign top donors included then state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-Warren) and Build PA PAC, who each gave $2,500 directly to his campaign, according to watchdog groupTransparencyUSA. This cycle, Build PA PAC spent $125,000 on Ziccarellis campaign, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars on other Republican state senate candidates in Pennsylvania, and $425,000 to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

Kim Lyons is a reporter for Pittsburgh City Paper, where this story first appeared.

Link:
Meet the Pa. Commonwealth Court judges who've recently sided with Republicans on election rulings, only to be overturned by higher courts -...