The State of Texas filed a lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court contesting the election procedures in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on the grounds that they violate the Constitution.
According to the Texan: “Texas alleges that the states in question violated one or more federal requirements for elections, specifically the Electors Clause of the Constitution which states in pertinent part: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress.”
Today we learned that multiple states have now joined the Texas lawsuit, arguing that the Equal Protection Clause has been violated in this election from state-to-state.
The states are Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas so far and Alabama has signaled it may join.
The lawsuit reads: “Certain officials in the Defendant States presented the pandemic as the justification for ignoring state laws regarding absentee and mail-in voting.
“The Defendant States flooded their citizenry with tens of millions of ballot applications and ballots in derogation of statutory controls as to how they are lawfully received, evaluated, and counted.
“Whether well-intentioned or not, these unconstitutional acts had the same uniform effect—they made the 2020 election less secure in the Defendant States.
“Those changes are inconsistent with relevant state laws and were made by non-legislative entities, without any consent by the state legislatures. The acts of these officials thus directly violated the Constitution.
“This case presents a question of law: Did the Defendant States violate the Electors Clause by taking non-legislative actions to change the election rules that would govern the appointment of presidential electors? These non-legislative changes to the Defendant States’ election laws facilitated the casting and counting of ballots in violation of state law, which, in turn, violated the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
“By these unlawful acts, the Defendant States have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but their actions have also debased the votes of citizens in Plaintiff State and other States that remained loyal to the Constitution.
“As set forth in the accompanying brief and complaint, the 2020 election suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities in the Defendant States:
“Non-legislative actors’ purported amendments to States’ duly enacted election laws, in violation of the Electors Clause’s vesting State legislatures with plenary authority regarding the appointment of presidential electors.
“Intrastate differences in the treatment of voters, with more favorable allotted to voters – whether lawful or unlawful – in areas administered by local government under Democrat control and with populations with higher ratios of Democrat voters than other areas of Defendant States.
“The appearance of voting irregularities in the Defendant States that would be consistent with the unconstitutional relaxation of ballot-integrity protections in those States’ election laws.”
Election integrity is central to our republic. And I will defend it at every turn.
As I have in other cases – I will help lead the effort in support of Texas’ #SCOTUS filing today.
Missouri is in the fight. https://t.co/V3aLHrYnOF
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 9, 2020
