Trump’s Early Declaration of Victory and Supreme Court Badgering Is Unconstitutional

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            President Trump has said he will announce he won the election if it looks like he is ahead early. That is according to three sources close to him. (Axios)

            President Trump also tweeted on Friday, October 30, “The Election should end on Nov. 3rd, not weeks later!”

“You would think you want to have the votes counted, tabulated, finished by the evening of Nov. 3,” he said at a campaign event a week earlier according to the New York Times.  

Trump stated regarding Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf , “We don’t want to be in a position where he’s allowed, every day, to watch ballots come in." (Vox)

 Based on Trump’s long standing attacks on absentee ballots, he will then go to the United States Supreme Court and demand those ballots be thrown out. Justice Kavanaugh and others are prepared to obey his demand. The United States Constitution Article I section IV places “the time, place, and manner of holding elections… in each state by the legislature.” Each county in each state is governed by those state rules. Each vote that is in play was cast in accordance with those local state rules. Our fellow citizens relied on those rules at the time they voted.

The only exception to state rules is a constitutionally granted Congressional prerogative to change the rules. Congress has not changed the state rules. The Constitution did not grant power to the Supreme Court to change the state election rules. The differences between decisions by congress with its vast membership verses five unelected justices of the Supreme Court shows clearly what the American delegates to the Constitutional Convention wanted, a deliberative process by elected members of congress before state law was changed.

There is a more important point. Any scholarly definition of the rule of law includes governmental actions based on existing law. Here the existing election laws were fixed by the states.

No one knows what Justice Barrett will do if this question comes before the court. Outside the Supreme Court, President Trump is bellowing what he wants, what he insists on, what he demands. That is the voice of a dictator. No Trump voter I know wants a dictator. No voter is casting a ballot to overthrow the Constitution. However, the ugly question for me is; are we witnessing one of the great rhetoricians with mesmerizing Rasputin like capabilities move us from a democracy to a dictatorship? We must never again come this close to betraying the founders of our country.

For further discussion of reasons the Supreme Court should not yield to Trumps unlawful demands, see 

my posting on this blog Friday October 30 here. 


Copyright 2020 James J Brosnahan 

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