Nov. 5, 2022 - Epoch Times
11:12
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| With the midterm elections just days away, and with over 35 million people having already voted early, well, the topic of election integrity is, for very obvious reasons, on the forefront of many people's minds. | |
| And so today, let's do a roundup of election integrity-related news from around the entire country, starting over in Pennsylvania, where just three days ago, the state Supreme Court ruled that undated mail-in ballots cannot be counted. | |
| Now, the backstory behind this particular lawsuit goes back about three and a half weeks. | |
| That was when, on October 11th, the Pennsylvania Department of State sent out guidance to all counties regarding ballots that don't have dates written on them. | |
| Here is what the guidance specifically stated. | |
| And just for your reference, this guidance was sent out by Ms. | |
| Leigh Chapman, the acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State. | |
| Quote, "Every county is expected to include undated ballots in their official returns for the November 8th election, consistent with the Department of State's guidance." Then if we actually look at the guidance that she's referencing in that statement, here's what it states. | |
| Quote, "Any ballot return envelope that is undated or dated with an incorrect date, but that has been timely received by the county, shall be included in the vote count." Which sounds all well and good, but the problem is that this is technically illegal. | |
| That's because according to Pennsylvania state law, any voter who uses an absentee or a mail-in ballot must quote, meaning that the guidance issued to all counties ahead of the 2022 midterm elections directly contradicted the plain language of the law. | |
| Which is funny, in a way, because that wasn't the first time that such a scenario occurred. | |
| If you remember, we discussed it in a previous episode, last year, over in Pennsylvania, a man named David Ritter, who is running as a Republican to be a judge in a local county, he was up by 71 votes over his Democrat opponent. | |
| However, there were 257 mail-in ballots which came in without a date written on them, which in theory should not have been counted. | |
| But the election officials did count those undated ballots, and after doing so, Mr. | |
| Ritter wound up losing his election. | |
| He then sued the election officials. | |
| His case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, who eventually ruled in his favor, but that was a year and a half later, and they refused to change the results of that election. | |
| But anyway, casting that case aside, this year, the Pennsylvania Department of State, they attempted to do the exact same thing, to make sure that all undated ballots were counted, regardless of what the law actually says. | |
| However, this year, instead of waiting until the election was over, well, Pennsylvania Republicans preemptively filed a lawsuit, saying this in part, quote, Republicans are holding Pennsylvania Democrats accountable for their brazen defiance of the Supreme Court and the rules duly set by the legislature. | |
| Pennsylvania Democrats have a history of election integrity failures, and Pennsylvanians deserve better. | |
| This lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State. | |
| And indeed, after several weeks of legal back and forth, they came out victorious with the state Supreme Court ruling in their favor and determining that the guidance that the Secretary of State issued was in fact illegal. | |
| Specifically, just three days ago, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court ordered all counties within the state to not count any ballots that come in undated or incorrectly dated. | |
| Here's specifically what they said as a part of their ruling. | |
| "The Pennsylvania County Boards of Elections are hereby ordered And so if you happen to be voting by mail in the state of Pennsylvania, well, make sure you put that date on the outside envelope. | |
| This wasn't the only legal victory in regards to mail-in ballots leading up to the midterms. | |
| That's because over in the state of Wisconsin, another judge, likewise, rejected a request which would allow election officials to count mail-in ballots that have incomplete addresses written on them. | |
| Specifically, over in the state of Wisconsin, In order for a mail-in ballot to be accepted, it must have, among several other things, the address of a witness. | |
| And previously, the Wisconsin Elections Commission, they said that this address must include three elements. | |
| A street number, a street name, and municipality, meaning the city or town name. | |
| which if you've ever ordered anything online is pretty standard. | |
| However, last month an organization called the League of Women Voters, they filed a lawsuit asking the court to officially declare that a missing address on a mail-in ballot can only mean one thing: that the entire address field is left blank. | |
| Meaning that if right now you send in a mail-in ballot, in order for its account, it needs to have a street name, a street number, as well as the name of the city. | |
| If you're missing any one of these three elements, well, the ballot might be rejected because it's missing the address. | |
| However, what the League of Women voters was asking for was a change of definitions, such that only if the entire field is left blank does it count as a missing address, meaning under their proposal, as long as something was written in the address field, then it should be enough to have the ballot accepted. | |
| On the flip side, however, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature, they intervened in the lawsuit and argued that the law should be upheld to the letter. | |
| After several weeks of once again legal back and forth, the judge in the case agreed, writing in the opinion statement that it would, quote, changing the rules would upend the status quo and not preserve it, as well as frustrate the electoral process by causing confusion. | |
| These lawsuit examples in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are just a small fraction of the 73 election integrity lawsuits that the RNC, meaning the Republican National Committee, has filed ahead of the midterms. | |
| Essentially, they are attempting to be proactive in order to avoid the challenges that they faced in the year 2020, where many election integrity lawsuits were dismissed because the overseeing judges determined that they were filed too late. | |
| And along that line, while speaking about another case that they filed over in Michigan, here's what Ms. | |
| Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the RNC, here's what she said in a statement. | |
| Quote,"...the RNC has filed a new lawsuit against Kalamazoo, Michigan. | |
| Michiganders deserve election transparency, and we are going to court to get it. | |
| This is our 73rd case of election integrity litigation this cycle, with more to come." Likewise, a spokesperson for the RNC added this. | |
| And indeed, these lawsuits are starting to have an effect. | |
| For instance, over in the state of New York, a state Supreme Court judge struck down a New York City law... | |
| Likewise, about two weeks ago, over in Michigan, the RNC won a major lawsuit against the local Secretary of State there, Ms. | |
| Jocelyn Benson. | |
| She's a Democrat. | |
| What happened in that case was that the Secretary of State's office, prior to the midterms, issued new guidance which imposed severe restrictions on both election observers as well as poll challengers. | |
| And again, after weeks of legal back and forth in the case, well, the judge agreed with the RNC and ruled that the Secretary of State's office must roll back the restrictions on election observers prior to the midterms because he wrote that they violated both state as well as federal law. | |
| However, on the flip side, not all these election integrity lawsuits are meeting with success. | |
| For instance, over in the state of Arizona, a federal judge ordered that people who describe themselves as mule watchers, well, they can no longer engage in election-related activities. | |
| Specifically, what's been happening over in Arizona is that after the film 2,000 Mules was released, a group called Clean Elections USA came out, and they declared their intention to prevent alleged voter fraud by staking out ballot boxes in order to catch alleged mules, meaning people who illegally cast multiple ballots. | |
| And they've been doing this by posting up around ballot drop boxes, surveilling them, taking photos and videos of people who go there, posting those photos and videos online, while at the same time the members were sometimes doing this wearing body armor and sometimes even open carrying weapons. | |
| Now seeing this, an organization called the League of Women Voters, which is the same organization we discussed over in Wisconsin, they called these actions a form of voter suppression and filed a lawsuit against these self-described mule watchers. | |
| Eventually, the judge in the case agreed with the League of Women Voters and issued a temporary restraining order, quote, prohibiting the mule watchers and other persons in active concert or participation with them from taking photos or videos of voters or spreading information about voters online, as well as, quote, making false statements about the state statutes regarding early voting. | |
| Now, following that ruling, a lawyer for Clean Elections USA said that very likely they will be filing an appeal to that ruling, making the argument that these restrictions on things like photography, posting things online, as well as discussing Arizona voting laws while they infringed on the free speech of American citizens. | |
| Here's specifically what the lawyer said, quote... | |
| It seems like our clients are on trial for the entire state or anybody who wants to participate in ballot box monitoring or even share their views. | |
| If you'd like to go deeper into any of these election integrity stories or these lawsuits, well, they'll all be down there in the description box below. | |
| You can click on them and head on over to the links. | |
| I'll throw the PDFs for the lawsuits down there as well so you can go as deep as you want. | |
| And all I ask in return is that as you're making your way down there to those links, take a short detour to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And also, if you haven't already, consider subscribing to this YouTube channel as well. | |
| that we can get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed every time we publish it. | |
| All right, just to pause here for a super quick moment, I wanted to mention that the sponsor for today's episode is a super cool company called Secure. | |
| And they're a cool company for people that actually care about their privacy. | |
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| Lastly, on a slightly separate topic, I'd like to mention that a few days ago, one of our reporters here at the Epoch Times obtained a leaked email from a Fresno, California-based hospital. | |
| And it was sent from the managing nurse to the different staff members within the department. | |
| And according to that email, they are seeing an astronomical increase in the number of stillborn children, meaning a 500% increase in the number of babies who sadly come out of the womb already dead. | |
| And according to this email, not only is there a huge uptick in the number of these cases, but also it's a trend that, for some reason, they think will continue well into the future. | |
| Now, for obvious reasons, I can't discuss that type of topic here on YouTube just because of the algorithm. | |
| However, if you'd like to read the letter and also find out some details regarding these cases, not only California, we also discuss it broadly across the entire U.S. I posted that episode over on Epic TV, our awesome no-censorship video platform. | |
| The link to that episode will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. |
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