As Trump leaves Georgia, where he complained about fictional election fraud, the state weighed in on a lawsuit seeking to overturn the election. "These claims would be extraordinary if true, but they are not."
The state has filed lots of pages, but this is probably the only one it really needs. The 11th Cir. bounced a similar suit today because plaintiffs lacked standing. That decision binds the district court here.
Georgia: "There is no credible evidence to support the drastic and unprecedented remedy of substituting certified presidential election results with the Plaintiff's preferred candidate."
The filing is by Georgia's Republican AG on behalf of its Republican governor and others.
Georgia's government seems pretty tired of this shit.
Did you know that one of the leading "experts" alleging fraud in Georgia claimed to have invented email, apparently fraudulently? Now you do.
Georgia notes that Sidney Powell & Co. "attached altered documents" to their complaint. The filings were cropped to remove the dates; she then argued the documents were "undated" in the lawsuit. This is a no-no.
Georgia's brief is a pretty straight demolition of some of the claims that voting machines were rigged, signatures weren't matched and other falsehoods.
This is a very normal kind of brief for a state to file when faced with a far-fetched lawsuit like this one. It's notable in large part because so many people - including the President - have asked the state to abnormal things to keep Trump in power.
Georgia has a separate filing this evening pointing out some of the many problems with the supposed experts pushing election-fraud conspiracies, including in Powell's case. One is an ex-Trump staffer. Others use "incomplete or faulty data." courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Georgia notes that one of Powell's lead experts - the guy who famously confused Minnesota and Michigan in a previous filing - "candidly admits his lack of relevant knowledge, education and experience" in his own declaration.
Georgia has mastered the mean parenthetical.
Lots of people ask why the gov't doesn't look into all this evidence of election fraud. Georgia pretty clearly did. Its lawyers have gone through the experts in Sidney Powell's cases, who also appear on alternate-reality TV. So they noticed one is the 8kun QAnon guy.
The statistical studies aren't much better. One expert - cited by Powell but also in the election-truther media - has "nonsensical" methodologies "and his data analysis is flawed and meaningless."
Doesn't help that they bungled basic facts.
There's something charming about Georgia's lawyers going through an is-this-person-actually-an-expert analysis for a person known in Powell's legal filings only as "Spyder."
The filing has exhibits in which actual experts look at some of these claims of statistical "anomalies" in voting patterns, and they're something. courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
There are more than a hundred pages of this stuff. I don't really know how to describe it. It's like asking actual doctors to do a serious examination of whatever weird anatomy claims you might find on Reddit.
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🤦♂️ Wisconsin's response to Sidney Powell's lawsuit points out that the Dominion voting machine she says were part of a big election-rigging plot weren't used in most of the counties she's complaining about, and in the two that did use them, Trump won.
The filing is notable because it engages with the "overwhelming" evidence Powell and others claim to have assembled proving the election was stolen. Although that evidence occupies many pages, it ain't great.
Four of Powell's main exhibits "are 'expert' analyses conducted by anonymous individuals whose credentials - or even existence - cannot be tested or assessed." One is an analysis of election technology by a person claiming to have a degree on physiology.
Sidney Powell told a judge it's important for the Department of Defense to get access to Georgia's voting machines.
The judge is basically sitting there while she goes through the stack of "expert" testimony that's been introduced in the case.
... and then the judge comes back to the actual legal questions of standing and why this case belongs in federal court, and he sounds pretty skeptical about all that and says Powell has been "glib" with her claims about binding precedent.
The federal court order in MI ending Sidney Powell & Co.'s request to overturn the election results there methodically shreds all of their claims. They lose on every single issue - the case is moot, was filed too late, they have no standing, etc.
The judge deals very briefly with the merits of these Kraken claims. The plaintiffs offered "nothing but speculation and conjecture."
Judge: Sidney Powell's election lawsuit in Mich. "seems to be less about achieving the result the Plaintiffs seek ... and more about the impact of their allegations on the People's faith in the democratic process."
Meanwhile in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court won't allow a conservative group to file a new challenge to the results of the election Trump lost there.
There's a concurrence from Justice Hagedorn, a frequent swing vote, expressing dismay at overturning an election. "We are invited to invalidate the entire presidential election in Wisconsin by declaring it “null”—yes, the whole thing."
Hagedorn's concurrence probably doesn't bode well for President Trump's own state lawsuit in Wisconsin that also seeks to invalidate the results of the presidential election he lost.
A Nevada state court just shot down Trump's effort to overturn the election he lost there. The plaintiffs "failed to meet their burden to provide credible and relevant evidence to substantiate any" of their claims.
The judge said a lot of the Trump electors' evidence was inadmissible because it was hearsay and was submitted in the form of written declarations. But the judge considers it anyway and Trump still loses.