“What they did in Pennsylvania was conduct, basically, an unconstitutional election.”
~ Tim Murtaugh
On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that a Trump campaign ballot processing observer in Philadelphia had no right to stand any particular distance away from election workers, and it’s up to counties to decide where poll watchers can stand.
The watchers were at least 15-18 feet away.
They overturned a lower state court decision that guaranteed Republican observers the right to watch ballot counts from no more than six feet away.
The decision was 5–2 because two justices wouldn’t have even decided the case, preferring to rule that it is moot. They ruled that the state’s election code does not set a minimum distance poll observers need to be in order to watch ballot counts and meet the law’s requirements.
Parameters were never set, they ruled, and it would be improper for them to do so.
Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania appellate court ruled that “call candidates, watchers, or candidate representatives be permitted to be present for the canvassing process…and be permitted to. Observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet while adhering to all COV-ai protocols, including wearing masks, and maintaining social distance,
Some observers were forced to watch from 100 feet away.
If you are too far away to see, how could that possibly qualify as legitimate?
DISTANCE DOESN’T MATTER
They argued that the campaign’s representative, Attorney Jeremy Mercer, could see every portion of the “pre-canvassing and canvassing process” and thus “could confirm that the only ballots which were scanned and tabulated were those who had been removed from secrecy envelopes and that the outer ballot envelope had been inspected for sufficiency and then sorted.”
The campaign said they couldn’t observe in a “meaningful way.” They had to observe from a football field size area.
The principal dissent also explicitly says that throwing out valid ballots would not be an appropriate remedy anyway. This is a total loss for the Trump campaign.
Rudy Giuliani took the case and is being torched on social media. At least one judge was highly critical of his performance in court.
It’s doubtful that he expected to win in this biased court.
It’s a significant loss for President Donald Trump’s campaign at a moment in which the legal strategy to block President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
At the same time, oral arguments are being heard to block Pennsylvania from certifying the election results based on a “mismanaged” election.
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