This article contains editorial content written by a retired Chief of Police and current staff writer for Law Enforcement Today.
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PENNSYLVANIA- If you thought the Red Sox coming back from 3-0 down to the Yankees or the Patriots coming back from a 28-3 deficit in the Super Bowl were miracles, you haven’t seen anything yet. The miracle being pulled off by Joe Biden in the 2020 election defies all logic. In other words, it smacks of a fix.
And that is exactly what we are seeing, helped in no small part by very suspicious activities occurring only in so-called “swing states.” How weird is that? Out of 50 states, the only states where we are seeing issues are in six swing states.
The United States Postal Service announced that it had found over 1,700 mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, as well as an additional 500 mail-in ballots in North Carolina after a court ordered sweep of their facilities in battleground states for additional ballots.
The presidential race is currently too close to call for most of the media, however as the swing states, all run by Democrats continue to perform miracles by producing additional Biden votes, Biden is inching closer to being the first U.S President who appears to be in early stages of dementia to be elected president. That’s ok with the Trump-haters however as well, you know, “Orange man bad.”
Friday morning, the Justice Department, in a court filing showed that USPS plant managers in Greensboro, Mid Carolinas, Central Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Metropolitan found more mail-in votes.
This included 1,703 in Pennsylvania, with 297 and 1,076 being miraculously found in primarily Democratic areas of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia respectively, while 539 were found in North Carolina,
Republicans have indicated they may challenge the late votes received in Pennsylvania. President Trump had a sizable lead in Pennsylvania on election night, but just like the Miracle Mets of 1969, Biden votes started dropping like raindrops during a mid-summer thunderstorm in his own little election miracle.
On Friday morning, Biden finally took the lead from the president, while the Trump campaign has filed a number of legal challenges in Pennsylvania, as well as in other so-called battleground states where there have been a suspicious dump of Biden ballots since Tuesday night.
In Pennsylvania, the Republican-leg legislature passed Act 77, which permitted voters to cast their ballots by mail, however set a deadline that all mailed-in ballots had to be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day in order to count.
However, Pennsylvania’s liberal Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that mail-in ballots didn’t need to be received by Election Day, ruling that as long as they were postmarked on or before Tuesday, and received by Friday at 5 p.m.
They also ruled that ballots lacking postmarks or with illegible postmarks could potentially be counted as well. So, in other words, ballots could be mailed after Tuesday (or created after Tuesday) and if they were dumped, they would have had to be accepted.
The ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court clearly violates Article II of the United States Constitution, however the useless Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, ruled with the three liberals that the court would not take action on the case when it was appealed to the high court, however basically kicked the can down the road for further review.
However, as some have rightly pointed out, the Supreme Court basically set it up so that they would be invalidating “votes” already cast which many believe they would be hesitant to do. Clearly, this was something that should have been ruled correctly ahead of time.
The Friday court filing which unmasked the hundreds of mail-in votes came after U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan issued court orders instructing the USPS to carry out sweeps of postal facilities twice a day.
Sullivan handed down the order earlier this week and directed the USPS how and when the Postal Service had to conduct sweeps for mail-in ballots.
The DOJ said Wednesday that USPS “conducted inspections by postal inspectors and sweeps at the relevant plants yesterday, pursuant to this court’s order, but it was not possible for the Postal Inspectors to conduct sweeps of all relevant facilities by this court’s 3 p.m. deadline” without interrupting operations on Election Day.
On Wednesday, Sullivan expressed “shock” that facilities in the so-called swing states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and others hadn’t been thoroughly swept, noting to DOJ attorneys that “it leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth for the clock to run out” and “I’m not going to forget it,” while adding that “someone might have a price to pay.”
The official who is leading the USPS election mail operations told the court, “I am filing this declaration to explain the Postal Service’s process of sweeping its plants to ensure that all ballots are dispatched expeditiously, and to ensure that the maximum number of ballots are delivered to the Board of Elections in time to be counted.”
Sullivan has also requested Postmaster General Louis DeJoy appear to testify as well.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has been actively challenging the legality of any mail-in votes which arrive after election Day and have asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“The United States Constitution is clear on this issue: the legislature sets the time, place and manner of elections in America, not state court or executive officials,” said Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark on Wednesday.
“As the President has rightly said, the Supreme Court must resolve this crucial contested legal question, so President Trump’s Campaign is moving to intervene in the existing Supreme Court litigation over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unlawful extension of the mail-in ballot receipt deadline.”
The presidents’ attorneys argue that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter after they decided last month, they wouldn’t expedite review before Election Day.
“Given last night’s results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States,” Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “And this Court, not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should have the final say on the relevant and dispositive legal questions.”
In his response on behalf of the secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on Thursday, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat said:
“Because the Trump Campaign cannot satisfy the standard for intervention as of right or by permission, the motion should be denied.
This matter has been pending before this Court for nearly six weeks. One day after Election Day, and for the second time in this case, the Trump Campaign has filed a motion for leave to intervene,” Shapiro said.
“The Trump Campaign’s first motion was properly denied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because its generalized grievance in maintaining the electoral status quo was insufficient to justify standing or intervention. That defect has not been cured by the passage of time.”
Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court punting on the case last month, Shapiro had told counties to segregate any ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. on Tuesday from those arriving before that time. Based on those rules, Pennsylvania can still be received through 5 p.m. Friday.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court likened the coronavirus to a natural disaster in justifying the deadline extension.
After the 4-4 decision not to grant a stay on the issue earlier last month, the court then blocked Pennsylvania’s Republican Party to stop counting after 8 p.m. on Tuesday in a 5-3 decision.
In that case, Justice Samuel Alito, one of the only true conservatives on the high court wrote in his dissent that he would have granted the Republicans’ request to limit ballot counting after Nov. 3, the day of the election.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined in the dissent, however they made it clear that the court could revisit the case after Election Day.
On Friday, Alito once again ordered the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to segregate all ballots received after 8 p.m. on Nov. 3. It is unknown what impact this will have on the count in Pennsylvania, however Alito indicated the case would proceed to the full Supreme Court.
Alito wrote:
“The Court’s handling of the important constitutional issue raised by this matter has needlessly created conditions that could lead to serious post-election problems.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has issued a decree that squarely alters an important statutory provision enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature pursuant to its authority under the Constitution of the United States to make rules governing the conduct of elections for federal office.
“This is not a denial of a request for this Court to order that ballots received after election day be segregated so that if the State Supreme Court’s decision is ultimately overturned, a targeted remedy will be available.”
The Trump campaign has filed numerous lawsuits in Pennsylvania, including in Philadelphia alleging that in that particular city, Republican poll watchers have been blocked from observing the vote count despite a court order mandating their presence.
Trump lawyers did say on Thursday evening that some GOP poll workers were permitted in the room during a court hearing.
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