ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Kate Hawkesby: Hard to predict how US election lawsuits will work out

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Fri, 6 Nov 2020, 10:21AM
The US Supreme Court will want to avoid getting involved. (Photo / AP)
The US Supreme Court will want to avoid getting involved. (Photo / AP)

Kate Hawkesby: Hard to predict how US election lawsuits will work out

Author
Kate Hawkesby,
Publish Date
Fri, 6 Nov 2020, 10:21AM

I spoke with a Constitutional law professor out of Ohio State University yesterday who was fascinating.

He’s an expert on elections, and he was trying to explain what all this acrimony and threats to take things to the Supreme Court could mean.

For starters, he said he hasn’t seen anything like this in his lifetime, so if we thought it was weird, it is.

What struck me was the President calling for the stopping of vote counting, and claiming the election was fraudulent, yet in the same breath claiming victory.

Some have said it’s all posturing bluff and bluster, that with litigation there’s the inside game and the outside game.And at this stage Trump’s threats fit the latter: shake the public narrative, create doubt.

But he wants to cherry pick which states have absentee ballots counted, and which don’t.

Law professor Edward Foley said that “the President is wrong to think he can stop that counting process.”

Even some Republicans are unimpressed with Trump’s tantrum around the votes. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger tweeted at Trump, “Stop, full stop, the votes will be counted and you will either win or lose and America will accept that. Patience is a virtue.”

Even VP Mike Pence appeared to contradict the President. A Republican strategist I spoke to said the phrase is called ‘clean up on aisle 5’ and this is apparently the job of the Vice President – mop up what the President has said that’s off track.

According to our Constitutional law expert, “a small slither of ballots may be subject to litigation if the race ends up being incredibly close in a pivotal state, but the idea that Trump can stop all of the ballots being counted – that can’t happen”.

Either way the US Supreme Court will be nervous. They know the history of Bush versus Gore in 2000, and they’d prefer not to get involved.

But we can’t just roll our eyes at Trump for being litigious, the Democrats are just as bad. Both camps have thousands of lawyers, both camps are well versed in using litigation as political tools.

But Edward Foley says, "the Supreme court doesn’t want to play gotcha with individual voters and trip them up after they’ve voted in good faith, thinking they were doing everything right”. So it’s very unlikely that the majority of the court will invalidate voters who cast ballots according to rules at the time of voting.

Former CNN Chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellen said - “What the President’s lawyers are arguing is – in these states, don’t count the ballots, but in these states, do count the ballots.. so it’s a completely arbitrary inconsistent legal posture”.

She says, “the only unifying rationale is count where I won, don’t count where I didn’t” - something she says is not going to work.

But who'd ever try to predict how this all pans out? Certainly not me.

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you