Sounds like Texas is not going it alone.
Texas filed a big election suit with the Supreme Court, suing four swing states of Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Because it’s a state vs. state suit, it procedurally meets the requirements to go directly to the Supreme Court, if they decide to hear it.
Now, Missouri had filed another brief in support of Texas, and 17 states are joining Missouri, to stop the electors in those four contested states.
The argument is like that of Texas: that because those states acted unconstitutionally, with electoral processes which were not in accordance with state law that that was in violation of the Constitution which vests power for the electors in the state legislatures. The point being that the swing states’ unconstitutional actions not only harm their citizens but they harm the other states and their citizens as well; that the unconstitutional actions dilute their votes.
“The integrity of our elections is of critical importance to maintaining our republic, both today and in future elections,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “The stakes of protecting our Constitution, defending our liberty and ensuring that all votes are counted fairly couldn’t be higher. With this brief, we are joining the fight.”
The Trump campaign also filed a brief asking to join on the Texas suit on Wednesday.
“The illegal suspension or violation of state law thus calls directly into question the certification of the results of the elections in Defendant States for Vice President Joe Biden, Proposed Plaintiff in Intervention’s opponent in the election,” its brief said. “President Trump’s interest in the outcome of this litigation could therefore not be more acute.”
The brief filed by Missouri and the other states, which is officially a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint, also warns that the changes enacted by the state executives and judicial branches opened the states’ elections up to potential fraud. [….]
It continues: “All the unconstitutional changes to election procedures identified in the Bill of Complaint have two common features: (1) They abrogated statutory safeguards against fraud that responsible observers have long recommended for voting by mail, and (2) they did so in a way that predictably conferred partisan advantage on one candidate in the Presidential election.”
Texas is asking the Court to find that the states are “in violation of the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution;” declare electoral votes from those states invalid; prevent the states’ electors from meeting or being certified; and direct the states to appoint new presidential electors.
The states joining Missouri are: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
The Court really should take it up. Otherwise, this will deteriorate still further with no state being held to account for simply making up rules out of the air just before the election. This could then happen again any time in any state, if the Supreme Court doesn’t smack it down now and hold people to the Constitution.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member