Plaintiffs: Electoral Vote Certification Makes It Moot
A victory, it seems, for the bad guys. (Or is it?)
By Brad Friedman on 1/11/2005, 3:09pm PT  

From AP:

Three dozen voters challenging the presidential election results in the Ohio Supreme Court asked to drop their lawsuit Tuesday, saying it is moot with last week's certification of the electoral vote and the upcoming inauguration.

Citing fraud, lawyers representing 37 voters on Nov. 2 had asked the court to examine several problems with voting procedures in the hopes of overturning President Bush's victory in the state.
...
Without giving specifics, attorney Cliff Arnebeck said challenges of the results would continue in state or federal courts. But he conceded that there was nothing available now to try to prevent Bush's inauguration.

"We are not quitting. We are going on to any other forum that's available and we intend to pursue those avenues aggressively," Arnebeck said.

The Bush campaign welcomed the announcement.

We imagine they would.

(For this, and other such Election 2004 related headlines as they happen...be sure to check out VelvetRevolution.us for more of the latest, up-to-date headlines than I am usually able to offer here on The BRAD BLOG! Of course, I will always attempt to post the most notable here. More often when I may have additional specific analysis to offer to the raw news reports!)

UPDATE: A report via a Yahoo Newsgroup on this issue reports that Susan Truitt, one of the attorney plaintiffs who brought the case, has said the decision to drop the case was based on a number of issues (which the AP story interestingly failed to mention). Amongst them, the report says they plan instead to file a Federal civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging civil rights violations and election fraud. That, instead of the Ohio action, which, they plaintiffs had come to discover, was being heard by the Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice who had shown a lack of impartiality in the case (e.g. He refused to recuse himself from it, despite being a a candidate on the ballot in question).

The point seems to have some merit, especially since the original hope they had of overturning the election in Ohio is essentially a Constitutional impossibility once the Electors have been ratified by Congress as they were on January 6th.

The post, from a usual reliable source, also says that Truitt "was concerned the biased, Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court would assess huge fines and penalties against the plaintiffs/attorneys filing the suit, in order to attempt to "deter" any further legal action." And concludes with, "Susan is working hard toward the federal civil action which will be filed very soon."

We'll be watching...

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