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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ptousig (talk | contribs) at 04:48, 12 December 2020 (I think Boland v. Raffensperger has been dismissed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Adding a timeline

Having a timeline would be nice, for historical purposes. Please comment here if you think this is a good/bad idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:72B0:F600:4C2B:74DD:1FEF:19A3 (talk) 08:19, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case Status ACCURACY and Color Coding

The color coding is a nice addition, however, they do not accurately reflect case status and many of the case statuses are wrong. For starters, there is no such thing as a case being "rejected" (in that example the case was settled and should be reflected as such).

Secondly, the biggest issues here (and there are many entries on this table guilty of this error), there is NO SUCH THING as a case being "DENIED". In each entry, whomever added the content is referring to a media article that inaccurately states this, but that that is inconsistent with the actual law. Rather what they are referring to is a motion on a case, and not the case itself. Motions are filed constantly on cases and the rulings either granting or denying these motions have to do with case activity, NOT the case itself. For example, Stokke et al v. Cegavske et al, this is listed as DENIED, however, there are several motions that were denied, including one filed by the DNC. This is not the case itself. The motion in this case was related to a Preliminary Injunction and a Restraining Order, but this is NOT a ruling on this case.

Third, we have status currently of Ongoing, Rejected, Denied, Dismissed, Dropped, and Ruled where they are color coded yellow, red, red, red, blue, and green respectively. Rejected should not be a status, neither should Denied for reasons explained above. The one case listed as Rejected should read Settled or Dropped and perhaps should be blue.

"Ruled" should actually be "Disposed", however, I think this Ruled is fine sine it's easier to read.

Dismissed should be placed in two separate categories, either Dismissed with prejudice or Dismissed without prejudice. "Dismissed with prejudice" should be RED and "Dismissed without prejudice" should be YELLOW or if used in a settled or dropped case, GREEN. This is because a case dismissed without prejudice is NOT closed, it is not good for either the plaintiff or the defendant as it does not have to be appealed for further action and can be heard again with additional or corrected evidence. Cases dismissed with prejudice are closed and would have to be appealed to a higher court, these are the only ones that should be red.

Typically a case dismissed (without prejudice) means the case was settled, dropped, or set aside, but with either side alloted the opportunity to gather additional evidence. Ether side can still file into the case or file additional lawsuits regarding the allegation. NOTE: Be careful when adding dismissed at all for that reason in part, but moreover, if dismissed at all, it is important to double check for a disposition which would really mean "Ruled". If there IS a dismissal with prejudice, then that means the judge threw out the case and it will not be heard. It is unlikely there would be many of these, if any at all. Most importantly, these are all part of public record, is very easy to see what the status is or if there is any recent activity on the case.

The coloring and wording are merely suggestions to discuss, however, some of these (such as those listed as denied, which is the biggest issue) require immediate attention. I did fix a couple of them, but don't have time to go through them all in a timely manner. OnePercent (talk) 1:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Possible source regarding Trump campaign lawsuits

Legal analysis by an expert, in regards to Rule 11 of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/trump-lose-frivolous-election-lawsuits.html It may be of relevance for the coverage here. IHateAccounts (talk) 23:30, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And note: '......when a party alleges fraud, it must plead the facts of the alleged fraud with particularity. (FRCP 9(b)).' "Rule 9. Pleading Special Matters...(b) Fraud or Mistake; Conditions of Mind. In alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake. Malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a person’s mind may be alleged generally."

[[1]] Qexigator (talk) 07:51, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are some of these lawsuits more-or-less aged out of relevance?

Should some of these lawsuits related to voter registration and voting methods--the Alabama lawsuit, for example--be labeled in some way to indicate that there's no longer relief possible? None of the issues in the Alabama lawsuit or the two Texas suits can be addressed any longer. User:Jonwilliamsl(talk|contribs) 13:05, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonwilliamsl: I think the summary table works to label the outcome/status of the cases...I added more information about the Texas cases, Texas Democratic Party v. Abbott & Texas League of United Latin American Citizens v. Abbott, and updated their "outcome" fields to "Ruled". I figure if relief is no longer possible, then the case has effectively been ruled on. Thoughts? Wdougs (talk) 16:24, 16 November 2020 (UTC) I also deleted the Alabama lawsuit because it involved a primary election runoff for US Senate seat, not necessarily related to lawsuits involving ballots being cast for 2020 US Presidential election. Wdougs (talk) 19:27, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delineate pre- and post-election lawsuits in the "Summary" table?

As the article currently stands, the "Summary" table contains any lawsuits relating to the election without specification of date of filing. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it does result in the intermixture of lawsuits filed before and after the election without indications of which is which. This is made more confusing by the lede of the article referring almost exclusively to lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign after the election, whereas the tables includes lawsuits filed by various parties at various times. The section on "Legal Analysis and Reactions" already has a sub-heading indicating that the discussion of controversy relates to post-election lawsuits alleging fraud. It would be useful to similarly delineate the lawsuits in the summary table for the convenience of the reader, and the most natural and objective way of separating the lawsuits is by their date of filing.

I know that the "Summary" table is already getting a little unwieldy, but, for the sake of clarity, would it help to add a column to state whether a given lawsuit was filed "pre-election" and "post-election"? Alternatively, we could split the current table into two tables such that one is for pre-election and one is for post-election lawsuits. Then each table could have a sub-header like the one in the "Legal Analysis and Reactions" section.

104.13.110.123 (talk) 22:56, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

104.13.110.123 I agree that the summary table is unwieldy and it is a good idea to allow for delineation between lawsuits filed before versus after the election. What do you think about adding a column to the summary table with the initial filing date of each lawsuit? Wdougs (talk) 05:00, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to "Legal cases ..."

How about we rename this article to "Legal cases related to the 2020 United States presidential election" which would then include criminal cases and not just civil suits?--Pakbelang (talk) 10:12, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Pakbelang: My understanding is that a lawsuit can refer to both civil and criminal cases that are before a court, so I don't think the title/scope precludes you from adding information about criminal cases related to the election. Wdougs (talk) 14:04, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Organize this article differently?

It seems that this article is meant to compile all lawsuits related to the 2020 presidential election, but also describes and summarizes information about the topic and each case. There are hundreds of these lawsuits, and it is quite the undertaking to document each one. According to a USA Today analysis, “[i]n all, more than 230 election-related federal lawsuits were filed from Jan. 1 to Oct. 23, higher than any of the past three presidential election years during the same time period.” [2] According to Reuters, “[m]ore than 300 lawsuits have been filed in 44 states about the Nov. 3 election.” [3] And this doesn’t even include lawsuits filed post-election. More, there are already sites dedicated to tracking this, as listed in the article, by the Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy Docket, the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, and SCOTUSblog. Do we need to duplicate those efforts? After editing the page for a few days, I wonder if this article is casting the net too wide? Would readers be better served by a different approach to summarizing accepted information on this topic? Wdougs (talk) 15:23, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good points, please propose something --Pakbelang (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Pakbelang: My concerns have been somewhat addressed by a few developments with this article: 1) on Nov. 19, a contributor changed this article from a list to a prose article, and 2) more recently, a contributor separated pre-election and post-election lawsuits into two separate articles. Now it should be markedly easier to cover the post-election lawsuits in this article because currently, they only number somewhere in the 30-40 range. However, my concerns still would still apply to the Pre-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election...there are hundreds of those cases. I have ideas for how to tackle that page but at some point will bring those up at that article's talk page (and will tag you for feedback if you don't mind). Wdougs (talk) 17:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Wdougs: Great to hear. I look forward to it. Thanks. --Pakbelang (talk) 13:28, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Ruled"

It's really hard to parse the "Ruled" lawsuits at a glance to determine if it was in favor of either party. Might I suggest an 'in favor of' column for the table? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Idontusenumbers (talk • contribs) 22:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree - I agree with this. Technically they should be labelled "Disposed" as in there is a disposition (judge ruling) in favor of one party or the other, or sometimes both, however as I noted above (see Accuracy) Ruled is likely easier to read for most. That said, an additional column for who the ruling favored would do wonders for this table. OnePercent (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Craziest"

Here's a report on Krebs' reaction to Guilani's election fraud allegation. Worth an add? https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/526764-ousted-cyber-official-giuliani-press-conference-most-dangerous-1hr-45min Bobby fletcher (talk) 02:45, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree - The article presented is exclusively opinions from an individual who was terminated. In my opinion, since this page is referring to legal cases and the law, it's important to stick with facts only and we already have some issues to clean up in that regard, so we shouldn't add more. Notably, Giuliani's press conference is equally as irrelevant. What happens in the court under oath as part of public record is what is relevant. OnePercent (talk) 00:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation Given

"Mean while in Georgia over 5000 ‘lost’ Trump votes where found during the recount. No explanation was given." -- The explanation is known. 2 counties reported problems. Floyd county found 2600 votes in a box that weren't counted. Fayette county found 2755 votes on a memory card that were never uploaded. https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-recount-uncovers-2600-new-votes-in-presidential-race/I75NSPYYGNF43HQZBPYKJWJ5MA/ https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/2755-uncounted-votes-found-on-memory-card-in-fayette-county-officials-say — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.57.110.91 (talk) 06:30, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A general well-done

Just read through this article and I wanted to say "well-done" to all concerned. It has been kept factual and NPOV, an admittedly difficult task in the current climate. Manning (talk) 02:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Should typos in the filing documents be brought up in this article?

I'm of the opinion that the typos in the filling documents should be omitted from this article. Typos in the fillings really doesn't affect the validity of the accusations (or the lack thereof). Perhaps the numerous typos could reflect sloppiness and professionalism of Trump's legal team, but I can't see how they could significantly impact the outcome of these lawsuits. It just seems like a petty "Grammar Nazi" type nitpick to me, and reeks of the editor throwing around their personal opinions. Unless it could proven that the typos have a discernible influence on the lawsuits, I would leave them out of this page. If don't agree with me on this, feel free to add your differing views here. Randomuser335S (talk) 02:45, 28 November 2020

In terms of notability, I'm not opposed to including a quick mention or short sentence about the typos, because the lawsuits brought by Sidney Powell (King v. Whitmer, Pearson v. Kemp) are described by some generally reliable sources as "typo-filled" (The Hill), "typo-strewn" (Bloomberg), or otherwise (Law & Crime). Other more questionable sources might be going a bit ham. Wdougs (talk) 07:42, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I lean no, but if it is mentioned, then not in the lede. It feels like a petty and insubstantial way to attack the suits, which have far more deficiencies than their typos. Fixating on typos undermines and elides that point. I believe that "typo-filled" is being used to communicate to lay readers the lack of care the Trump campaign's legal team has taken, in lieu of complicated explanations about the elementary legal shortcomings and procedural oversights. Also it's much easier to write articles about typos than about first-year law student procedural errors.-Ich (talk) 10:06, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Generally though, our standard should be what reliable sources deemed important enough to include in their reporting. If multiple RS explicitly mentioned typos, then we should mention them as well. Not prominently maybe but a sentence about it seems appropriate if we have multiple RS talking about them. We can leave it up to the readers to decide what to do with that information. Regards SoWhy 20:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently one or two of the filling documents have severely noteworthy typos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nblE8ps2M&feature=youtu.be&t=2027 WikiMane11 (ThunderPeel) (talk) 19:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Case Details Error

I think someone mistakenly added information about Pearson case under Wood v Raffsensperger. The documents in the footnotes at the end of the Woodcase details actually bring up documents styled to the Pearson case. Or am I missing something where they were joined together?

Discussion of edits re: specific cases

Pearson v. Kemp

There are a number of attorneys of record in this case. See [4]. Two are now mentioned by name: Sidney Powell and Marc Elias. Others are not. There are also a number of other Pro hac vice applications. Is there a consistent NPOV editorial policy on why (or why not) to discuss specific attorneys in this, or any other, case? I'm OK with the content as-is, but if it can be improved, so much the better. Seraphim3 (talk) 20:13, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Seraphim3: I wrote that Sidney Powell filed this lawsuit because it is described that way by multiple sources cited in the summary of this case (1, 2). It seems another contributor added information about Marc Elias; I suppose this could be removed as the contributor relied only primary source documents. I would think the threshold to add mention of a lawyer involved in a/the case is whether reliable secondary sources mention it. I think it may be less of a NPOV issue, and more about notability. Your thoughts? Wdougs (talk) 22:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Wdougs So, apparently Sidney Powell and Marc Elias both have their own Wikipedia articles, both with 500+ revs. I think that addresses notability. I changed the section slightly, to mention them back to back, and with what I thought was more neutral wording, so that's NPOV. I'm fine with any further edits by more experienced editors here. I think your point on notability is well taken. If we mention every last attorney, in every last case, the article would become unwieldy. But if there's a consensus someone's notable, and it improves the article, that's very reasonable. Seraphim3 (talk) 06:32, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Seraphim3: It makes some sense to me that if an attorney is notable enough in their own right to justify a Wikipedia article, their involvement in the case can be verified by a reader without any specialist knowledge, and no one contests the inclusion of the information, then the information can be included. Though, there may be an argument for including info about an attorney only if reliable secondary sources used in the article mention the attorney...otherwise, it may be original research, to cite and interpret only primary documents in order to list which attorneys are notable enough to mention. Wdougs (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On December 2, 2020, plaintiffs filed their appellant brief. See (1, 2). I added more generic information about the appeal in the article itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seraphim3 (talk • contribs) 07:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC) Seraphim3 (talk) 07:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Seraphim3: Your additions are appreciated, but personally I am hesitant to cite only primary sources (the actual court documents themselves) when writing about a case. When that happens, it might be considered original research because a contributor is interpreting information (what's important, what's not, how to frame), as opposed to letting secondary sources do that for the reader. Otherwise, I'm all for adding the court documents to supplement secondary sources. Your thoughts? Wdougs (talk) 16:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Boland v. Raffensperger

Is this a Wisconsin case? Raffensperger is the Sec of State for Georgia. JuliettPapaGolf (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Resolved @JuliettPapaGolf: Good catch, I made that mistake. I moved the prose and summary table line to Georgia.

Does this court document [5] indicate the case has been dismissed? Ptousig (talk) 04:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge, Texas v. Pennsylvania et al

Amariokart created a standalone article for this case, but I think this is premature before the court accepts or denies the petition and there are further developments. I merged the article per WP:MERGEREASON using a redirect but this was first time I've done anything of the sort, so I might be missing other steps or considerations. Wdougs (talk) 01:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a logical thing to do although not much merging seems to have taken place since most of the information was already in this article. But I agree that the case is not (yet?) notable enough for its own article which might change if the SC really takes it up. On a side note, if you want to link to a user, either use [[User:Username|]] or the {{u|Username}} template. I fixed that for you. Regards SoWhy 07:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
SoWhy, true that. In essence I just redirected the page. Thanks for info on linking to users. Wdougs (talk) 15:48, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This page should be removed

Referencing actual lawsuits with actual sworn witnesses would be counterproductive to the narrative that it’s all a crazy right-wing conspiracy with zero evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azuizo (talk • contribs)

Summary of the summary

How about adding a one sentence summary at the top of the Summary of post-election lawsuits? Maybe stating ## cases dismissed, ## cases dropped, ## cases ruled for the plaintiff, ## cases ruled for the defendant, ## cases ongoing, etc. GoingBatty (talk) 05:35, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see the new Counts section! Politico reports "The Trump campaign and its Republican allies have officially lost or withdrawn more 50 post-election lawsuits, and emerged victorious in only one, according to a tally kept by Democratic Party attorney Marc Elias...". Is Elias miscounting, or are there some lawsuits missing from the Wikipedia article? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:37, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"... falsely asserted widespread election fraud"

"Trump, his supporters, and his attorneys falsely asserted widespread election fraud in public statements..." The word "falsely" has been removed three separate times (Nov 25, Nov 29, Dec 7) by users who did not provide edit summaries. Even though WP:3RR specifies "within a 24-hour period", I don't want to re-insert the word "falsely" another time without soliciting consensus. Plenty of WP:RSs unequivocally consider assertions of widespread election fraud false. Uncritically repeating these false assertions is giving them WP:UNDUE weight. Six RSs support the word "falsely", including the NYT, AP, ABC News, Politifact, New Yorker, and BuzzFeed News, all of which are considered "Generally Reliable" in WP:RSP. If there's substantial disagreement, I'm happy to open an RFC: "Should the lead section of the article describe Trump's assertions of election fraud as false, or not?"-Ich (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ich: A note, the link you provided for the December 7 revision linked to the November 29 revision; I corrected it. Also, it looks like in the November 29 revision, Indubioush wrote "Reduce left-wing bias" in the edit summary when removing the word "falsely." This was the only edit summary provided when removing the word "falsely". In any case, last time no reason was given for removing the word so I added it back. Wdougs (talk) 01:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC) Correction, OnePercent wrote an edit summary for the December 7 revision, but did not address the removal of "falsely." ("Removed "on his behalf" from opening sentence since this is inaccurate and only an attorney can file a lawsuit on an entity's unless it's an immediate family member or in class action lawsuits. Secondly, the filing entity is a legal entity, not a person RE: "his") Wdougs (talk) 06:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wdougs Thanks for fixing the link. The edit summary by OnePercent was from the edit preceding 2603:8080:ac40:1b7:d460:3199:32f5:bc44. (The diff pages show both the previous and current edit summary; it's easy to misread.) OnePercent didn't remove the "falsely", that was our IP colleague.-Ich (talk) 08:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ich Oh I see, my bad. Thanks for clarifying. Wdougs (talk) 16:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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