RNC Gets Win In Effort To Toss (Disproportionately Democratic) Mailed Ballots In Pennsylvania

Which only makes the argument dumber. Subsection (e) is not subsection (a), and it’s the latter that is at issue in the case. “When used in this subsection” does not mean “When used in that other subsection up there above, you see that other one? Yeah, we definitely mean to include that subsection too in this definition that is specifically limited to this particular subsection (e). What even is the point of identifying subsections in definitions anyway? Fuck it, just everybody do good stuff no matter what we actually say.”

1 Like

I’m quoting the judge in her dissent. Your strawman arguments continue to be off topic.

That you are quoting the dissenting judge just illustrates that your argument is wrong.

A definition of “vote” in subsection (e) that explicitly applies only to subsection (e) has no effect on subsection (a). You know, the subsection (a) that the plaintiffs cited as the basis for trying to make the state count their non-compliant ballots.

1 Like

We can all blame the Supremes for this. They eviscerated the Voting Rights Act and that set the tone to the GOP that shenanigans are perfectly ok IMHO.

1 Like

Dred Scott was a majority opinion, too. Majorities can be wrong, as they are in this case. The CRA clearly defined voting to mean casting an effective ballot, which refutes several of your other claims as well, so the intent is clear. A wrong or missing date doesn’t affect a voter’s qualifications to vote, so it obviously can’t logically be used to deprive them of their actual vote.

1 Like

And yet you still refuse to engage with the actual text of subsection (a). And because of that, I am done. Enjoy your magic unicorn sky fairy theory of statutory interpretation. It shall not serve you well, but it may make you feel better about being wrong.

1 Like

I was wondering when one of you would decide to step away from the disagreement. .

1 Like

Without evidence that a particular procedure in the voting process de facto harms or was intended to harm a protected class of voters, it is up to the state legislatures, not the courts, to deal with the voting rules.

Now that humans control most of the planet, it’s clear that extractivism has its limits if we are to coexist with other species. The latest More Than Human (MOTH) law protects whales.

1 Like

TPM shout out in Guardian today. That’s what we’re getting for our subscription, people.

5 Likes

The state could just remove the date from the envelope.

It’s only “odd” if you assume judges appointed by Democrats disregard the law to reach results predetermined by ideology and politics and that their preferred method of statutory or constitutional interpretation is merely a bad faith pretext for reverse engineering reasoning to hide results-oriented decisions the way Federalist-selected judges do.

2 Likes

Your tax return isn’t rejected if you don’t place a correct date on the outer envelope used to convey it to its destination.

Because more Democratic voters vote by mail.

In Virginia, the vote for Lyndon LaRouche’s ghost would be recorded with the hand-counted write-in votes. It wouldn’t affect the election outcome unless millions of others had written in the same candidate, but there would be a record of it. I recorded a number of votes for Mickey Mouse and the like in my day.

5 Likes

True.

This is just another example of the Second Law Republican behavior: if you can’t win fairly, cheat.

The first Law of Republican behavior is, “If the truth just won’t do, cheat.”

If Virginia wants to accept a write-in vote without requiring the voter to check the “Write-In Vote” box, that’s Virginia’s business. Just as it’s Texas’s business if we want to require the voter to check that box before their red-crayon screed gets counted.

(Actually, Texas requires the write-in candidate to have officially filed for their write-in candidacy, so a vote for the ghost of Lyndon LaRouche will under no circumstances be counted. No Mickey Mouse votes either. And I think our law is quite sensible on that matter.)

2 Likes

That seems close to if not a distinction without a difference.

If you throw someone out of a plane without a parachute, does that kill them on is them hitting the ground?

Are people wrong to think that they have voted when they deposit their ballot after having (forgive the word, I may be applying it erroneously) voted?

2 Likes

Sensible? Sounds more like a ‘Camel’s nose under the tent’ slippery slope argument to me.

In what Republicans are currently doing to suppress the vote (on and off the federal judiciary) we are witnessing just the latest is a long history of seeking to restrict American’s ability to vote. Here’s a clip from the Father of Modern American Conservatism, Paul Weyrich.

4 Likes
Comments are now Members-Only
Join the discussion Free options available