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Comment by VikingCoder | Hacker News Reader

> Every single case was dismissed on procedural grounds.

So, the procedures should have been followed.

This is such a simple thing to say, and easy to understand. Except you seem to not accept that. Why not?

And the Supreme Court case, they said, even if they'd listened to the case, there would have been no remedy. Meaning, it would have been pointless to listen, but they think by law they should have listened.

This says to me that the people filing these cases do not understand the procedures, do not understand the possible remedies, were not acting in good faith.

Why doesn't it say that to you?

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Maybe there isn't actually a procedure for this situation? If the highest court in the land says even if the claims turn out to be true there is still no remedy to be had. In other words, even if the election was provably stolen, they won't overturn the result. So what procedure should have been followed?

You're accusing attorneys of not acting in good faith or sheer incompetence for not having a firm understanding of an entirely novel legal scenario. The Texas case was, according to reports, hotly debated in private by SCOTUS before they made their decision. Shame you weren't there to educate them on proper procedure.

Yes, I am accusing attorneys of not acting in good faith.

One of them literally called for the execution of the Vice President of the United States. [1]

Another called for "trial by combat." [2]

How tolerant am I supposed to be?

> Maybe there isn't actually a procedure for this situation?

For the 60 court cases? Yes, there are.

> If the highest court in the land says even if the claims turn out to be true there is still no remedy to be had.

Actually, that was the dissenting opinion. The decision was that the petition lacked standing.

> In other words, even if the election was provably stolen

They had 60 chances to prove it was stolen.

I have little sympathy for someone who believes that somehow 60 different court cases were simultaneously wrongly decided.

Move on to changing the laws, winning the next election. This one is decided.

> Shame you weren't there to educate them on proper procedure.

I think they came to the right decision. You're the one who wants to educate them.

[1] : https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-allies-attack-lin-wood...

[2] : https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/watch-giuliani-deman...

> Another called for "trial by combat."

Giuliani used the words "trial by combat" but it's not an accurate description of what he was calling for. There's a lot to blame Giuliani (and others) for here, but let's try to be precise.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

That seems the other way around. In that case, the context made it clear that what could be notionally defended as an expression of frustration was in fact a call to act.

In this case, out of context, "let's have trial by combat" seems worse than when placed in the context that marks it as clearly metaphorical - he had just explained what he meant by it.

It's absolutely heated rhetoric, and one example of many - on the part of Giuliani, Trump, and others - that together built a context that led to violence.

It is absolutely appropriate to blame them for that.

That doesn't make labeling it a call for "trial by combat" a good representation of what happened in that moment.

Procedure for voting fraud is to punish the guilty (harshly; it's a federal crime) and correct the exploit. It's never been to toss legitimate votes for suspicion of illegitimacy. If anything, the system is biased heavily to enfranchise voters at the boundary of legitimacy, because claims of illegitimacy were historically used to keep undesirable classes of people from exercising their rights.

> Maybe there isn't actually a procedure for this situation?

There is, for at least the vast majority of the issues.

E.g., for the allegedly not-legislatively-authorized election-process issues that have been the center of many of the challenges, the process is to challenge the change when you have notice of the process before the election, the failure, despite knowledge of the facts motivating the challenges, to do that in favor of doing post-election and often post-certification challenges is the source of both laches and mootness dismissals of those claims.

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