OUTBURST #2 – CONTRADICTION COMES TO ELECTION INTEGRITY
- Jim Williams
- Nov 21, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Nov 22, 2024
November 21, 2024
This is rich!! From the recent efforts to recount ballots in the Pennsylvania Senate election comes this story…
[Background: Pennsylvania, like all states in the U.S. has election laws that govern the validity of ballots not cast in person. It is a given that votes not cast in person, such as proxy votes, and mail-in ballots, are only counted if they meet certain procedural requirements – they are properly signed, dated, and delivered by the established deadline.]
In the initial ballot count, election officials rejected ballots that were not properly completed according to election rules. One political party sued to have these ballots counted. From online news…
The [Pennsylvania Supreme Court] initially ruled on Nov. 1 that mail-in ballots without formally required signatures or dates should not be counted. [Some] election boards, however — including in Philadelphia, Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Centre County — balked at the ruling and voted to include such ballots in the recount.
"People violate laws any time they want," … Bucks County commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said last week, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. "So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes."
Election boards are composed of partisan appointees. The most plausible interpretation for the comment that the commissioner wants “a court to pay attention” is that this commissioner disagreed with the court’s original ruling and wanted it reversed so that these ballots would be counted, to the benefit of the candidate from her party. The issue was returned to the courts…
The court’s new decision to block the officials was made 7-0 on the merits and 4-3 on pro-cedural matters, with Justice David Wecht…, writing in concurrence:
“It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court. As Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote: ‘If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. … The greater the power that defies law the less tolerant can this Court be of defiance.’”
One way of restating Diane Ellis-Marseglia’s explanation is, “If I don’t like a law, I am free to break that law if it suits my purposes.” This is a classic application of the axiom “Rules for thee, but not for me.” Justice Wecht comments are “spot on;” one wonders if he knows Joshua 21:25.
The court is to be commended, as is Justice Wecht. In the face of some blowback, Ms. Ellis-Marseglia subsequently claimed that her comments had been taken out of context…
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