Justice Amy Coney Barrett said it doesnât conflict with federal law, which sets âthe Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in Novemberâ as the âday for the election.â
âThe election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose,â Barrett wrote.
She and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the courtâs three liberal justices in the majority. The courtâs four other conservative justices dissented.
(Sep 2, 2022)
Earlier this year, there was an important legal dispute in Germany, about whether electronic voting machines were legal for use in German government elections. The dispute was decided by the German Constitutional Court (similar to the U.S. Supreme Court), and the short answer was „no.“ Now, we have available an official English translation of the ruling. As I had been told before, the ruling really does seem to ban any kind of computing equipment from being used in German elections. The legal reasoning was interesting enough that I thought I‘d share one reflection on it. The basis for the ruling was the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (similar in function to the U.S. Constitution) and the principle that „all essential steps in the elections are subject to public examinability.“
(Mar. 25, 2009)
The Court invalidated the Federal Voting Machine Regulation (BundeswahlgerÀteverordnung, Sept. 3, 1975, BUNDESGESETZBLATT I at 2459, as amended, available at http://bundesrecht.juris.de/bwahlgv/index.html). This Regulation failed to require transparent control mechanisms for ensuring an accurate vote count and thereby violated article 38 and article 20, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Basic Law (the Federal Constitution) (Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz, GG) [in English translation], http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/GG.htm#20 (last visited Mar. 23, 2009)). Article 38 guarantees free and equal elections, whereas article 20, paragraph 1, requires that governmental power be based on elections and paragraph 2 guarantees that laws and regulations are in conformity with the Constitution.
(Aug. 16, 2022)
Republicans under Trumpâs leadership view voting as a privilege that should be zealously guarded against those who canât affirmatively prove their eligibility on demand or who arenât able or willing to stand in long lines on Election Day under the watchful eyes of professional intimidators. All the fatuous talk these days of the GOP being the party of the working class is hard to square with its determination to maintain a throwback system of voting that makes it hard for working people to cast ballots during restricted hours on a weekday.
As of Wednesday, 497,000 Virginians have cast their ballot, with 323,000 doing so in-person and 174,000 by mail according to L2, a national voter roll vendor. Another 183,000 early ballots have been sent out but not yet returned.
By contrast, on Oct. 22, 2020, 12 days before the presidential election, more than 1.5 million Virginians had already voted, and another 1.1 million ballots were outstanding. While this nearly 70 percent drop in early voting may seem large, it is expected.
When a voter requests an absentee ballot on a paper application, he or she must sign it. Election officials compare that signature to the signature in voter registration files before a ballot is sent to the voter, Raffensperger said.
When those ballots are returned, the required signature on the outer envelope is compared to signatures in the voter registration system.
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A county-by-county review by Just the News of accepted and rejected mail-in ballots throughout the state of Pennsylvania show that, when added up, the state only rejected 951 of 2,614,011 mail-in ballots this year, or a rate of 0.03%.
Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to claim his lead in âmany key statesâ has âmagically disappearedâ, after it was confirmed today that Joe Biden had overtaken the current president in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Mr Trump was leading in both of the rust belt states when he prematurely declared himself the winner of this yearâs presidential election on Tuesday night at a White House press conference.
Joe Biden is currently holding a narrow lead over President Trump there. Counting continues in other key battleground states – latest updates:
According to a press release from the county Tuesday night, about half of the ballots received by mail had been counted by 8 p.m. but the process was going more slowly than anticipated due to mechanical issues with the ballot scanner.
After the high speed scanner had been operating all day, a technician was called into the Election Bureau to allow the scanning to continue until 11:30 p.m. before picking back up again around 8:30 a.m. A second scanner is also expected to be available on Wednesday.
(29.10.2020)
In the final days before the presidential election, the Supreme Court has been pelted with requests from parties in battleground states seeking last minute approval to change election rules, especially regarding whether mail-in votes can arrive after Election Day and still be counted.
They planned to stop scanning absentee ballots at 10:30 p.m. and pick it up back in the morning. No official could explain before press time why Fulton was stopping its count of absentee ballots at that time, only saying that was the procedure.
âAs planned, Fulton County will continue to tabulate the remainder of absentee ballots over the next two days.
Despite President Donald Trumpâs claim that his early lead in Pennsylvania based on partial vote totals is âgoing to be almost impossible to catch,â most mail ballots had not yet been counted and released as of 3 a.m. Wednesday.
And those ballots will heavily favor Joe Biden.
Four key battleground states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia — began Wednesday with tens of thousands of absentee ballots uncounted, leaving the White House race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden up in the air.
Election officials in some states called it a night and planned to resume the count in the morning, while some counties in Pennsylvania weren‘t even to start tabulating their mail-in votes until later Wednesday morning.
In August, the respected CATO Institute reported that 62% of Americans acknowledge holding views that many people consider offensive. Among conservatives, that number skyrockets to 77%. With potentially tens of millions of closeted fans, Trump is a pollsterâs nightmare. The wife of a pro-Trump buddy of mine detests the 45th president. Yet, when she slams Trump â which is very often â my friend smiles, nods approvingly, and replies, âI hear ya, sweetie,â or, âyou sure got that right, honey.â Another guy who does the same thing says, âHappy wife; happy life.â
„The rule of law, as established by the United States Constitution and the Minnesota Legislature, dictates these rules must be followed notwithstanding the Secretary‘s instructions to the contrary,“ the assenting judges wrote in explaining their decision.
„There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution.“
The Interregnum comprises 79 days, carefully bounded by law. Among them are âthe first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,â this year December 14, when the electors meet in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots for president; âthe 3d day of January,â when the newly elected Congress is seated; and âthe sixth day of January,â when the House and Senate meet jointly for a formal count of the electoral vote. In most modern elections these have been pro forma milestones, irrelevant to the outcome. This year, they may not be.
âOur Constitution does not secure the peaceful transition of power, but rather presupposes it,â the legal scholar Lawrence Douglas wrote in a recent book titled simply Will He Go?
(27.10.2020)
For the 2020 election, the states have until Dec. 8 â six days before the electoral college must meet â to count votes and settle all election disputes.
(September 27, 2020)
This year may feature the most turnout ever, according to some projections, and combined with an expected surge in mailed ballots could mean that Americans don‘t get a definitive result on election night.
(September 21, 2020)
There does seem to be general agreement on one provision of the 1887 act: the âsafe harborâ clause. It provides that, if a state submits its final tally in the Presidential contest by six days before the meeting of the Electoral College, that decision is âconclusiveâ and thus free from legal challenge. This year, the safe-harbor deadline is December 8th; the Electoral College meets in each state capitol on December 14th.
It is unclear, however, what will happen if a slow vote count puts a state in jeopardy of missing the deadline.
(September 3, 2020)
More than at any time since 2000, the possibility that states could have problems meeting crucial December deadlines for their electoral totals hangs in the air. The sheer challenge of tallying mail-in ballots during a pandemic could delay final results, as could litigation in swing states with narrow margins between candidates.
With about 240,000 ballots mailed, that meant one in five voters received a wrong ballot. The error happened Saturday afternoon when someone changed a setting on a machine that places absentee ballots into mailing envelopes, Franklin County elections officials said Thursday.
„Well, they‘ll go out and they‘ll go vote, and they‘re going to have to go and check their vote by going to the poll and voting that way, because if it tabulates, then they won‘t be able to do that,“ Trump said on the tarmac in front of Air Force One. „So, let them send it in, and let them go vote, and if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won‘t be able to vote. If it isn‘t tabulated, they won‘t be able to vote. So that‘s the way it is. And that‘s what they should do.“
(8 hours ago)
President Trump is scheduled to speak at RNC Monday, 12:30PM ET.