Breaking the time warp of Election Day

Both setbacks and successes call for us to come together as a community, and yet we hold back because we’ve been led to believe that our politics define our character. That unless we voted like our neighbor, we have nothing in common. And where will that get us?

Opinion

December 11, 2020 - 12:41 PM

On Wednesday, Kansas joined the effort to subvert the 2020 election results by requesting the U.S. Supreme Court to block Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania from casting their Electoral College votes come Monday.

And you wonder why it feels like “Groundhog Day.”

Susan Lynn, Register editor

DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas Attorney General, committed Kansas to the 18-party lawsuit filed by Texas.

Schmidt’s goal is to award Donald Trump another four years as president, or at least be recognized for trying.

Schmidt & Co., allege government officials in the targeted swing states used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to skew the election in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. Though they had no evidence, they alleged these states made it easier for people to vote early, cast absentee ballots or vote by mail, and thus — according to the lawsuit — opened the door to corruption. 

Legal experts say the case doesn’t have a leg to stand on for a number of reasons, including:

• States don’t have the right to dictate to each other how they conduct their business, including elections; 

• There’s no constitutional requirement that states have identical voting rules or procedures; and,

• Because Biden handily won the election in terms of both the popular and Electoral College votes, which recounts have further cemented, justices have no reason to interfere. 

Schmidt defends dragging Kansas into the costly lawsuit — is there any other kind? — by saying “The stakes of protecting our Constitution, defending our liberty and ensuring that all votes are counted fairly couldn’t be higher.” 

After almost 50 failed lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies these past few weeks, for Schmidt to say another lawsuit peddling the same conspiracy theories is justified is beyond the pale. 

On Tuesday, a similar lawsuit was quashed by the justices.

In that one, Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly asked the court to either throw out his state’s entire election results or, at the least, those ballots cast by mail. 

Kelly maintained his state’s election laws, especially those pertaining to voting by mail, are invalid, even though they were approved in 2019 by its GOP-controlled legislature. 

Of those cast by mail, 77% were for Mr. Biden.

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