The decision Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Cicuit in a Pennsylvania case illustrates just how weak Trump's position is. The decision, written by a Trump-appointed judge, threw out the Trump campaign's appeal as being totally without merit.
The opinion stressed that PA state law governs how PA elections are to be held, and that law was followed in the recent electoin. The law requires that election law be interpreted liberally to apply the public policy of having every vote count; i.e., technical violations are supposed to be overlooked. The court made clear that it is not the province of a federal court to rewrite state law.
The Trump campaign complained about county-to-county variations in how mail-in ballots were handled, in that some counties allowed voters to correct technical problems, like a signature being in the wrong place. The court held that this presented no constitutional problems.
The Trump campaign complained about restrictions placed on poll-watchers at some polling places. The court held that there is no evidence that Republican poll-watchers were treated any differently than Democratic ones; therefore, there is no Equal Protection case to be found here.
It should be noted that a whole series of attorneys for Trump dropped out of the case, ending up with the clownish Rudy Guliani taking over, even though it had been twenty years since he'd seen the inside of a courtroom. Guliani made a complete fool of himself by repeatedly alleging fraud in press conferences, while inside the courtroom he said forthrightly, "This is not a fraud case". The fact is, this was the freest and fairest election in our history, with cameras everywhere overseeing the proceedings.
Yesterday Trump said that he wanted the Supreme Court to take the case, saying it was "the best case ever". I seriously doubt the Supreme Court will touch this case, as it really presents no significant issues.
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