President Trump, the GOP, and their allies filed over 60 cases. They lost every last one of them in abysmal fashion. It's 1/8/21. This thread is coming down! But we're going to have another impeachment thread because the President tried to have a mob destroy Congress.

Let's keep a thread running of all the active and dismissed cases, the relief sought, whether it would flip the election, and maybe a brief summary of the merits or lack thereof.

What you put in the comments I'll include in the top post here.

(If you're into this stuff and other legalish topics I write about pop law issues in a newsletter on linkedin.. Edit: New edition of Legalish is out.)

New Mexico

Trump v. Secretary of State -- Active Case -- This case was filed as the Electoral College is voting and it seeks to enjoin New Mexico's electors from certifying the election/voting in the EC. It doesn't make any novel argument that hasn't been shot down by other courts. Also filing a lawsuit like this on the day the EC votes is not timely, to say the least. They also want the court to remand the case to a place it's never been: the state legislature. The state legislature is controlled by democrats.

I'm including it up here because it's an actual Trump case and not one of his allies. Also they might get sanctioned for this. There's no purpose in filing this lawsuit except to be vexatious to a state that didn't vote for Trump and to use the court as a fundraising tool.

Texas

Texas v. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin -- Cert. Denied -- Texas filed for a Preliminary Injunction to flip the election.. Trump Intervened Texas argues they have standing because the Vice President would be Kamala Harris, and the Constitution requires “equal suffrage in the Senate.” (This reads like a joke, but it's not. Texas believes that their preferred candidate not winning an election is an injury to the state. Their standing argument is that they don't like elections, basically.) Texas claims deadlines are unconstitutional. They also make a Frankenstein's monster of an argument that cobbles together claims already shot down in the other 50 lawsuits Trump and his allies have lost in the courts challenging election protocols. [I wrote some stuff about it here in Legalish](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/legalish-election-litigation-update-rudys-big-day-out-brian-lynch/?trackingId=hqcWi+JFRKWkD32dwp1Mtw==.

Some spicy flavor notes to this glass of awful: the solicitor general of Texas is conspicuously absent. He's the designated SCOTUS attorney for the state. The person running it is Attorney General Paxton, a guy that's facing a criminal indictment from a grand jury and faced recent allegations of bribery.

Edit: it’s dead. Dismissed on standing. Alito and Thomas dissented. Would have heard the case but denied relief.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/121120zr_p860.pdf

Pennsylvania

Donald J Trump v. Boockvar -- dismissed with prejudice — Trump campaign has asked the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania to order the governor of Pennsylvania not to certify election results. The request stems from several complaints that vote-by-mail ballots were permitted to be corrected in some counties but not others—in other words, nothing that could possibly justify stopping the Secretary of State and Governor from certifying the results.

This is the first serious attempt at litigation but the relief sought is a heavy ask which is to not allow PA to have an election this year.

In Re: Canvassing Observation Appeal of: City of Philadelphia Board of Elections -- Appellate court's decision is reversed. Trial court's order denying Trump campaign relief is reinstated; namely, the observation distance rules were fine. -- [Thank you /u/OrangeInnards!]

In this case, the County of Philadelphia Board of Electors is appealing a decision about the distance observers can be to the ballot counters. An appellate court reversed a trial court saying protocols for the distance between observers and counters were fine. The County seems to want their initial protocols affirmed by the State Supreme Court even if the issue is moot. [Thank you /u/_Doctor_Teeth_ for contributing!]

Update: "2,349 absentee ballots in Allegheny County where the voter didn’t date their declaration are invalid, reversing a lower court judge."

Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, 20-542; Scarnati v. Pennsylvania Democratic Party, 20-574 -- Active case -- This is the case about the 4,900 or so ballots received by mail in Pennsylvania between 8 p.m. November 3 and November 6, but postmarked by Election Day. These 4,900 or so ballots are not enough to make up Trump’s 45,000 vote deficit even if they all were counted his way. In any event, Republicans are asking for the opposite relief: they want these ballots not to count. Case is interesting pretty much exclusively because SCOTUS could touch it but it's doubtful they will because the outcome wouldn't affect anything.

Georgia

Lin Wood v. Raffensperger against GA SoS et. al in Northern district of GA (original filing 11/13.) -- Active case -- Edit: I previously had this listed as a dismissed case. The court dismissed a motion for TRO on lack of standing but didn't dismiss the entire lawsuit for lack of standing. Alleged is that the defendants unilaterally changed election procedures specifically with regard to absentee ballots (including curing,) improperly. The suit asks to exclude the absentee ballots from the GA tabulation and certification, and to proscribe any certification which includes said absentee ballots.

Brooks v. Mahoney -- Active case -- Republican voters submitted a host of issues about ballots and voting issues. E.g., voters not receiving requested ballots and having to use a provisional instead or ballot counters counting ballots in secret after 10:30 pm at State Farm Arena. Relief requested is to invalidate the election results in Atlanta and some of the state's most populous suburbs.

In Re: Enforcement of Election Laws and Securing Ballots Cast or Received after 7:00pm on November 3, 2020, SPCV20-00982 -- Dismissed -- A Republican poll watcher went to the bathroom. When he got back 53 ballots had been processed while he was taking his evening constitutional. At an evidentiary hearing the case fell tp pieces. The relief sought wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway. Case dismissed.

Arizona

Donald J Trump v. Hobbs -- Dismissed -- Plaintiffs realized relief requested would not flip the outcome of the election and voluntarily dismissed -- This is a case about overvoting in Maricopa County. This is basically Sharpiegate but repackaged and even includes declarations from people complaining about Sharpies. Trump's attorneys allege that poll workers either pushed or induced voters to push a green button to override warnings about overvoting. The relief sought mirrors the process for overvotes in the AZ Elections Manual (which has the weight of law in AZ). The relief sought will not change the outcome.

Aguilera v. Fones -- Dismissed -- This is Sharpiegate. Evidence didn't support the causes of action. Sharpie bleedthrough didn't cause "overvoting." Dismissed.

Michigan

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Benson -- Dismissed by Plaintiffs -- Complaint filed Nov. 11. Description from Democracy Docket: "Trump lawsuit claiming fraud in Wayne County election. The suit seeks to halt the certification of election results in Wayne County and statewide." [Thank you /u/satanmanning !]

This case was voluntarily dismissed by the Trump campaign. They asserted that officials refused to certify the election for Biden and put this statement in their dismissal. Defendants filed for Rule 11 sanctions to strike the statement because it's not true.

Costantino v Detroit [Credit /u/spartangrrl78! Thank you for contributing!] -- Dismissed -- “plaintiffs interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible” --

https://www.greatlakesjc.org/wp-content/uploads/Motion-for-TRO-Brief-Order-Costantino.pdf

Of note: The law firm that is handling this is the same who represented the barber out of mid-Michigan who didn't want to follow Whitmer's stay at home order last spring and stayed open and as a result, the guy became a cult hero.

Anyway, 3 out of the 5 affiants are political activists for the GOP. That isn't to say that means that's unusual, given that they were GOP poll watchers/advisers, But it makes you question why they all volunteered at the Detroit precinct when none of them live in Detroit.

Patrick Colbeck ran for the gubernatorial GOP nomination in 2018 and had single-digit support, made a bunch of racist and xenophobic attacks against Abdul el Sayed and is generally not someone that I would think acts in good faith.

One of them is an attorney who seems to be a conservative activist.

Another is a former chair of a local GOP.

Another has in his LinkedIn profile that he is literally a 'political activist.'

I'm not saying that makes these guys less credible, I'm just saying that it seems like all of them signed up to work at the polls with an agenda. Its even obvious from their affidavits that they were just getting in the way and being obnoxious, or misunderstood the entire process and are trying to frame it in an underhanded way. (AKA Colbeck climbing under desks to see if a modem was connected for literally no reason, the other guy insinuating that there was something underhanded about a box of ballots arriving in a mail bin).

Donald Trump v Secretary of State -- Appealed -- Case was dismissed at the trial court because the relief sought was moot. Trump's attorneys want access to video surveillance of voting drop off spots through the appeal anyway. They failed to file about 8 different documents though so they need to cure defects in filing before proceeding.

Nevada

Stokke cases -- Dismissed -- An elderly woman sent in a ballot that was verified and received. She had an issue with that. Was offered the ability to sign an affidavit confirming her vote. Case dismissed in state court. Claims were repackaged for federal court in a 6-page filing with no additional evidence really. Case dismissed.

Trump Electors v. Biden Electors -- Active case -- Trump electors demand that Trump be announced the winner or that no one be certified the winner. The complaint seems to focus on GOTV efforts by democrats being unfair somehow but doesn't specify why. They make some noise about voting machines not functioning properly but concede they don't have evidence this would affect the outcome ("evidence will show..." but they don't have anything in the complaint) and then construe this to be an equal protection issue because machine verification of signatures is different than visually checking them. (Note: it's kind of facially ridiculous to think that a computer would have a more difficult time than a human verifying signatures. ) Regardless of the merits the ask is gigantic here. [Thank you /u/acekingoffsuit!]

Wisconsin

Trump and Pence v. Biden and Harris -- Dismissed -- This is a case filed in Milwaukee County to invalidate votes in Milwaukee and Dane Counties asking the court to overturn the election results. This is a hail mary pass from 4th and somewhere in the parking lot outside the stadium. "Wisconsin’s Supreme Court rejected another just like it on Dec. 3, with one conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn calling it a “real stunner.”"