11mo ago

Trump files first election lawsuit in chilling sign of what’s to come

Trump Files First Election Lawsuit in Chilling Sign of What’s to Come

The election fraud lawsuits have started again.

...

But Trump chose to stoke the flames Wednesday morning, posting on Truth Social that "Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before."

"Law enforcement must act, NOW!" he added.

Bucks County officials confirmed to NBC Philadelphia that they had been notified of the lawsuit, but did not provide further comment. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, meanwhile, shot back at the Republican presidential nominee, highlighting that Trump and his allies have spent the last four years actively corroding public trust in U.S. elections---and that they are currently warming up their second conspiracy to undermine the 2024 election results.

AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND @lemmy.world

Doug Holland @lemmy.world

11mo ago

Trump's baseless election fraud lawsuits have started again

newrepublic.com /post/187714/donald-trump-election-lawsuit-chilling-sign-pennsylvania

94 comments

Pennsylvania is cheating
How?
and getting caught
Where?
at large scale levels rarely seen before.
When?
"Law enforcement must act, NOW!"
By doing what exactly?
- "Gish Gallop."
  It's a debate technique. You overwhelm the opposition with an endless stream of half truths, exaggeration's, lies, and tangents that make it impossible for them to get their point across.
  
  Bannon during Trump's term referred to this as "flood the zone with shit". Essentially just putting out such a large volume of nonsense that people just give up, you break their will to vote/argue/oppose you/fight back/correct the record.
  
  Sealioning is the layman’s unmoderated form. If you don’t let the other person speak or respond you always get to ‘win’.
  It’s interesting how adversarial the nature of some people is.
- They have mountains of evidence, stacked to the ceiling with all the evidence from the 2020 election and Hunter's laptops
  
  Floor to ceiling with birth certificates and emails
  
  They have concepts of evidence. Many people said so, and the orange utan saw it on tv, or read it online. He's just reporting what people are saying
  
  So this proof of election cheating is in Hunter Biden’s laptop? Makes about as much sense as any of this.
  He’s likely shitting himself beyond the usual for not understanding Puerto Rican citizenship and voting.
- You see, he doesn't have evidence, but he has concepts of evidence.
- I thought they were already getting caught?
- There was already an instance I read about yesterday where some former representative was caught on camera stealing ballots from a test machine and then telling someone else that the counts were fucked up (because he stole the ballots) so they want to create their own reality where the election is rigged...
  I honestly think it's going to work... They're either going to get lucky and hate wins the day outright, or they'll force a win through ratfuckery... :(
  
  I saw that one too. Even if the media reports on it truthfully with headlines that don't ragebait readers by withholding the fact that it was a R stealing R test ballots, MAGAots are just going to cherry pick "R ballot stolen" and raise their pitchforks.
  Objectivity and truth doesn't matter to the Qult of bigots, unfortunately.
  
  I honestly think it’s going to work
  I don't pretend to be able to predict the future, but Trump tried this same thing four years ago and couldn't pull it off - and he was actually still the President at that time. Seems like it would be even more difficult for him to do it this time as an ex-president, especially considering that he's now so old and senile that he can't even paint himself orange properly any more.
- And with the usual ambiguous word salad too.
  Hey, you heard about all this incredible cheating? Cheating. Cheating! Vote cheating is bad, it's so bad. Never seen anything so bad I tell you. But the police does nothing. Nothing! You think vote cheating is ok? I don't think people should be allowed to get away with it!
  Etc etc etc ad nauseam.
  
  Not enough capslock
- We're seeing in real-time why maintaining a coherent, unified, transparent voting system and communicating how and why it's secure against tampering is so important. It needs to be difficult to sow doubt in the election, and you can only achieve this through simple to understand and explain methods.
  Because if the average person can be convinced it's not secure and legitimate, then it doesn't matter what the reality is.
  This is why I'm so sick of people pointing out the defamation lawsuits from the voting machine companies as some kind of win for the democratic process.
  Voting machines have been just one of the many ways the Republicans have sown doubt over the results. Stop using voting machines, obviously (in my opinion. There's also 2 great videos from Tom Scott on the topic)
  Important things to get right:
  functioning, reliable postal system. (Trump did a great job on undermining this)
  unified electoral communication so that every place has the same election, not bloody 50 separate ones with wildly different practices. (Well shit, constitution needs to be amended)
  a simple voting recording method anyone can understand. (Voting machines are bad, simply because they're too much of a security risk and black box that can have doubt sown very easily)
  consistent invigilation
  courts that aren't stacked (good luck with this one, though)
  And obvious move away from FPTP, but everyone is already calling for that.
  Armchair citizen under the American empire, giving you my 2¢.
Quite a lot of the misinformation out of PA stems from a willful ignorance of how all this stuff works.
For example... the voter registration drives turning in invalid registrations:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-registration-probes-launched-crucial-keystone-state-counties-amid-claims-potential-fraud
"District attorneys and election officials in both Lancaster County and York County are looking into potential election-related fraud after authorities received large batches of voter registration materials from a "third-party organization." Both York and Lancaster counties have more registered Republican voters than Democrats, according to state data, with York Republicans holding a 63% majority in the area and Lancaster Republicans at a 61% majority."
When you do a voter registration drive, you are legally obligated to submit all registrations, valid or not. The only entity with the legal authority to reject registrations as valid is the State Secretary of State office.
This is because, back in the day, parties would do registration drives and just shit-can any registration for opposing parties.
Now, even if some dumbass fills out a registration for "Mickey Mouse" or "Superman", it STILL has to be submitted to the Secretary of State for rejection.
That's not "voter fraud".
- Y'all need to unify your federal election into an actual federal election. Not 50 separate ones.
  It would be a lot harder to pick and choose battleground states for lawsuits if you 1. Change the voting system yes, but also and importantly 2. Have consistent rules and voting infrastructure across the whole country.
  Having to understand 50 separate election rules makes it way easier to sow doubt.
  I am aware there are also some federal laws on voting, but still.
  
  I tend to agree, at a minimum there should be federal regulations for federal elections, but the problem is that it's impossible without a constitutional amendment making that definition. :(
  The idea of ANY amendment even getting started with the 290 vote super majority in the House is just beyond us right now. :(
  Election reform, supreme court reform, term limits, should all be top of mind.
Hasn't even lost yet and he is already being a sore loser.
Imagine idolizing this loser.
- "I DIDN'T LOSE YOU CHEATED!!!"
  "We haven't begun yet, sir"
  "Sorry, habit"
From The Guardian:
The queues for late mail ballots were a result of Pennsylvania not having an early on-site voting system at designated spots, as is the case in some other states. Instead, voters can apply for ballots on demand at election offices before filling them out and submitting them on the spot, a procedure that takes about 10 minutes.
The flood of late applicants overwhelmed electoral workers in Bucks county’s administration building in Doylestown, leading to a long queue, which was cut off at about 2.45pm on Tuesday
I went to drop off my ballot on Saturday and when I got there, not to the main office in Doylestown, but one of the smaller remote offices, and there was a huge line all the way across the front of the building and I was wondering what the heck was going on.
As I was getting to the end of the line, a person came over and asked if I already had my ballot, and when they saw it, they said I could go right in and drop it off. There was only one couple ahead of me there.
I had been wondering what the line was for, and now that makes sense. The Republicans had made the mail in ballot more complicated than necessary during COVID, so now they seem to feel it biting them as their potential supporters have been screwed by it.
“Democrat election officials are seeing our numbers. They’re seeing our turnout. They are seeing us breaking early vote records across Pennsylvania,” he said. “They are terrified. And they want to stop our momentum. We are not going to let them suppress our votes.”
Pennsylvania does not start counting votes before election day. Nobody has any clue as to who is voting for whom.
They've broken the system and want to say "look at this broken system, we can't trust it!" To me that just shows we can't trust you!
I really hope Pennsylvanians do the right thing. These people need to be stopped.
- The Republicans had made the mail in ballot more complicated than necessary during COVID, so now they seem to feel it biting them as their potential supporters have been screwed by it.
  “Democrat election officials are seeing our numbers. They’re seeing our turnout. They are seeing us breaking early vote records across Pennsylvania,” he said. “They are terrified. And they want to stop our momentum. We are not going to let them suppress our votes.”
  This is the shit that is INFURIATING to me... They broke the system thinking it would hurt Democrats but now that it's affecting them they just blame Democrats which also helps them in the end... God I hate these people so much
  
  Yup, same nonsense as when they sabotage the Post Office and talk about how that doesn't work. The votes against immigration reform and then the yelling about that not working. Won't cut spending or raise taxes but complain about deficit spending.
  They want you to want to throw out our current system so they can replace it. That's why it's important to understand the right people to be mad at. If you get mad at anyone other than them themselves, they win.
- They’ve broken the system and want to say “look at this broken system, we can’t trust it!”
  This has been their process for... ever. They cut funding to government agencies (eg. FEMA), then when said agency has a hard time doing their job. they point a scream that the agency can't do it's job and should therefore have it's funding cut. Rinse, lather, repeat. And right wing voters fall for the sham every 👏 single 👏 time 👏.
  
  They're anti-education for a reason...
He's riling up his base. People are going to die for this skidmark
- You ain't fucking kidding. Cities are about to get raided by hillbillies & rednecks with guns on trucks. I wish I was exaggerating.
  
  No. Remember after Jan 6 when the badass freedom-fighters promised ominous "actions" in state capitals on Biden's inauguration day? That day came and went, and at the few "actions" that did happen attendance was in the dozens. When those chickenshit couch farts saw their revolutionary heroes getting methodically tracked down and arrested by the FBI, they stayed home and shook their tiny fists at their TVs. That pathetic bunch of cowards love to talk badass, but when faced with actual personal risk they couldn't civil war their way out of a Walmart.
  
  Cities are about to get raided by hillbillies & rednecks
  I've got some terrible news for you, about the political contingent common to plenty of big cities. It won't be hillbillies and rednecks tearing shit up. It'll be city cops, state troopers, and the deranged failsons of used car dealers.
  
  You don't even know how many inner city black folks love Trump, huh?
  Ain't just white trash that's gonna try putting him in power
  
  Well, you do have a right to bear arms... protect yourselves 😥
Nice of him to get all the denial stuff started early so both sides have a nice heads start.
/s
On a serious note though, dems can weapons this
“Trump is a sore loser even before people vote”
But they won’t.
- dems can weapons this
  The thing about wrestling in the mud with a pig is that the pig likes it.
  
  If the democrats hadn't been pussies for two decades before Trump and effectively welded power, we wouldn't have had Trump.
  
  I dunno, when she said at the debate that people were getting bored and leaving his rallys early, that was straight out of the trump playbook, and he did not seem to like it at all
  
  High road allll the way to losing. Yeeehaw!
  Just learned to fucking wrangle a pig in the mud. It’s been done.
Blame Weird Old 34's enablers for not holding him accountable when they had the chance: Moscow Mitch McConnell, the conservative SCOTUS Justices, Merrick Garland's slowness, and so many more!
- 34? Eisenhower?
  
  No, 34 as in the number of felony counts he was found guilty of
  
  The last good republican president.
- That sounds like a form of dementia.
  “Grandpa used to be a top notch line worker before he got the Merrick Garland’s slowness.”
- This is by design. Im feeling it iny loins. This whole thing has been a cold civil war. "Look how far down we can fall, you should vote for reasonable candidates". I swear this is just to keep the American people in line and accountable.
  Edit: also this forces a higher voting turn out. A byproduct of all of this is more activism.
The campaign did not point to any instance in particular that led it to believe that voters had been treated unfairly in Bucks County, but county officials had observed that there were complaints on social media (shared by the Trump campaign) about long lines to obtain mail-in ballots on Tuesday, the last day of their availability.
If you wait until the last minute you might have to wait in line with the other procrastinators. This is not cheating or fraud it's just common sense. But it tracks for Boomers to throw a tantrum if the world doesn't magically accommodate them and they have to wait for anything.
- They did not have any facts to present but they feel like cheating is occurring. That's enough for a lawsuit right?
Bonespurs knows this bogus litigation won't even cost him anything, his flock will pay for it.
I would actually call it a ho-hum sign. It's just his fingernails scraping the floor as he gets dragged out of the spotlight to spend the rest of his sad-ass life in court.
but county officials had observed that there were complaints on social media (shared by the Trump campaign) about long lines to obtain mail-in ballots on Tuesday, the last day of their availability
This is all about allowing people to vote by mail in ballot??? What the fuck was his 2020 complaints all about???
- Entire states vote by mail and they work out fine. It’s a paper record. He should like that after all the voting machine conspiracy crap he’s been floating.
  
  It’s not about what he likes, it’s about what can erode public trust in the process enough that people will reject the entire system and Trump can declare himself president without having to worry about the will of the people.
If he loses PA, he's done.
Not very surprising, they'll likely push multiple lawsuits in swing states. At least the state justice systems learned from 2020 and 2022 and are expediting these lawsuits to avoid dragging them out and further erode confidence in the electoral system.
LegalEagle published an early access video on Nebula for their paid subscribers explaining the different scenarios to come, and it should show up on YouTube soon.
EDIT: The video is out
- Yes, the lawsuits are part of their plan, because they know even when all these cases get thrown out because they got nothing (like last time) that the base (Trump's foot soldiers) will believe Trump saying the justice system is being used against him/them.
"Law enforcement must act, NOW!" he added.
Welp, he's right about that part! Just not the way he thinks.
His lawyers deserve what they'll get from doing this -- being unpaid.
- They don't need to be paid now. They can get fast-tracked onto the federal courts later.
Didn't it used to be a crime to file frivolous lawsuits?
He wants SCOTUS to give him a gift in a state that matters. Virginia was nice but not necessary for Democrats.
Did his file it himself? Because Im amazed that any lawyer will help him without cash up front.
Good! Even though Last Year Literally NONE of his Lawsuits went Forward because there wasn't Evidence and then earlier This Year Trump admitted he lost in 2020 I KNOW this year he's going to be RIGHT!
Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
Ironic that the qons always bitch and whine about "lawfare".
More like the typical qon MO, I guess, and not at all ironic at this point...
Democrats should file a lawsuit every time he does, just because.
- While prima facie, that's true, your reply doesn't mention that anything has been uncovered coupled with the fact that Trump has a history with frivolous and vexatious litigation kinda makes me think this is nothing more than pretext. Though the boy that cried wolf is a parable for a reason. So one shouldn't drop their guard. It's just a shame one man can clog up the court to this extent. There are remedies that courts can take against vexatious litigants, though.
0-43
trump is a universally understood joke.

94 comments