We’re like, what are you talking about? A federal candidate for office, a sitting member of Congress, doesn’t have standing to challenge an election being illegally extended for two weeks. So one of the things I love about Judicial Watch is like we’re in the middle of these fights where like for instance like on this Russiagate stuff we’re still trying to get text messages from struck and page. We’re still battling for text messages there who are at the center of a lot of these scandals. But the cover-ups have been going on for seven years just on struck and page from the government.

But separately we still have a lot of other work to do and we just, you know, the establishment always tells you, oh well we’re doing all this other stuff. We can’t do that too. I don’t believe that. First of all, they’re the government. They can do whatever they want. And I know from Judicial Watch we do everything. I’m exaggerating slightly but we try to cover the full orbit of corruption issues that Americans care about. And number one or near the top is election integrity. And Judicial Watch is the nation’s leader in terms of ensuring our elections are free, fair, and clean.

And one of the big cases we have concerns the counting of ballots that arrive after election day. There are I think 19 states or so, maybe 21. I forget the number of changes depending on how you count. But nearly two dozen states that allow the counting of ballots that arrive after election day. And the problem with that is federal law sets an election day on the election day you all know about. Every four years or two years there is a specific election day set by law. It’s when you’re supposed to typically get your ballots in or show up and vote by then.

But you have these states counting ballots for weeks after election day. And it’s one thing to count ballots for weeks after election day because you’re so incompetent you can’t even count the ballots you’ve had since election day. Which I think is problematic to be clear. But it’s beyond belief that you would dare to count ballots that arrive after election day as President Trump noted in talking about the issue. He said it’s like someone showing up three days after an election and demanding the vote. Too late. You don’t get your ballot in by election day.

It shouldn’t be counted. At least under federal laws we’ve alleged in various federal courts. We have three cases. One in California. One in Mississippi. One in Illinois. In Mississippi it went up on appeal. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that our client is correct in our analysis of the law. That it is unlawful account ballots that arrive after election day. In California the case has been stayed because I’m going to tell you about it now. Because in Illinois we sued on behalf of a congressman and two presidential electors. Congressman Mike Moss B.O.S.T. Because they count ballots that arrived for up to set.

Excuse me that arrived for up to 14 days after election day in Illinois. And I don’t even think you need a postmark sometimes. And rather than deal with the merits of our claim the courts there said that he has no standing. We’re like what are you talking about. A federal candidate for office. A sitting member of Congress doesn’t have standing to challenge an election being illegally extended for two weeks. It doesn’t make any sense under Supreme Court precedent. Basically any conception of the law. So we appeal. We lost to the appellate level two to one.

Powerful descent. So we appealed to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court took up the case. It was announced about a month or two ago. And we just filed the opening brief in the case. And I encourage you to go to our website and review it. Now we expect to get the oral argument set in October. I don’t know that for a fact but that’s likely to be the case. So all the briefing has to be done well before then. So in this case which is captioned. What’s it captioned? Representative Michael Boss, Laura Paul Strinney and Susan Sweeney versus the Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews.

I’ll bring up the case here or I’ll bring up the press release. Give me a second. You see the press release here. Judicial Watch announces U.S. Supreme Court brief in a historic election integrity case. This is the way to think about it. This is at least the way I think about it as a lawnmower. This is about whether a candidate can challenge a dirty election in federal court. If there are illegal rules, who can challenge those illegal rules if not a candidate, right? And you never know if you’re going to win or lose. But I can’t imagine we’re going to lose.

I just can’t imagine it. It would be terrible if we lost because it would just allow rampant illegality to go unchecked in significant ways when it comes to election administration. As I note in June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Judicial Watch’s appeal of the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The lower courts had denied that Boston and the electors had standing to challenge Illinois’ practice of counting ballots received up to 14 days after election day. And we quote from our brief. Let me get a page of the brief here.

And I encourage you to read the full brief. It did a great job. Our lawyers did a great job. Federal law sets the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the federal election day. Candidates have an obvious interest in the lawfulness and fairness of the rules that govern the elections into which they pour their time and resources. They also have an obvious interest in ensuring the final vote tally accurately reflects the legally valid votes cast. Candidates pour enormous resources into running for election and have an obvious interest in the rules that dictate how long their races will last and how the ballots will be counted.

They also have a distinct interest in ensuring that the final vote tally accurately reflects the legally valid votes cast. So what’s there to argue about? I mean, that’s my approach. I mean, either you buy it or you don’t. And I would hope the Supreme Court would make easy work of this issue. Judicial Watch’s legal team makes a simple and powerful argument to the Supreme Court. It is obvious the candidates are standing to challenge unlawful rules governing the elections into which they are pouring untold resources. So this is a big deal. I mean, this is about as big an election case that the Supreme Court has heard at least in the last decade.

And they’ve had significant gerrymandering cases. But this one’s pretty darn important and will guide how courts approach who can challenge election issues. And the other piece of news is that we hired a major league attorney to help us with the case before the Supreme Court. His name is Paul Clement. You may have heard of Paul before. He’s argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court. I don’t think there’s anyone else out there who’s argued as many. Maybe there’s one or two on the left that have. And he’s representing Congressman Boss in partnership with Judicial Watch’s attorneys.

He’s former Solicitor General. What is the Solicitor General? He is the official in a Justice Department that is in charge of arguing the U.S. government’s position to the Supreme Court in matters that the court’s hearing. So he worked for President Bush from 2000 to 2008 in that position and is widely regarded as one of the top Supreme Court litigators in the country. And on top of that, we’ve got this crack team of election lawyers here at Judicial Watch that is the top election law team in the country. Bob Popper is our senior attorney who runs the team.

Popper was previously the voter section. Previously was in the voting section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. So he saw what was going on in the Justice Department. And he was really quite happy to come over to Judicial Watch where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states. And Russ Nobiel, who has been litigating this case below, also worked at the Justice Department. And he has been front and center in litigating these cases as it relates to counting the illicit counting of ballots that arrive after Election Day.

Now, I probably don’t have to tell you why it’s illegal, right? Make much of a case to persuade you. But it does call into question, potentially, election outcomes. In California, our case is on hold because the Supreme Court is considering the issue about whether Congressman Issa, who we’re representing in California, who’s suing over the state counting ballots that arrive for seven days after election. In our lawsuit, we alleged there were two seats that were flipped from Republican to Democrats in the House of Representatives based on votes that were counted that arrived after Election Day, which, in my view, means those seats should still be Republican.

And I’m not saying that because, oh, I support Republicans. I’m saying it because that’s what the law would require. So think how close the House is. Two seats matter. So this isn’t an academic argument. And it just highlights the need not only to resolve this issue in terms of the merits, but how important it is to have a vehicle in court to resolve this issue, meaning candidates got to be able to fight for the rule of law when their candidacies are on the line, when their election outcomes are on the line. So you can read the full brief at judicialwatch.org.

We’ll provide a link to you below. It’s a great decision. It’s a great brief, but it’s pretty simple and it’s accessible to, you don’t have to be a lawyer to benefit from it. [tr:trw].

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