Even before President Joe Biden’s long-speculated withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, allies of former President Donald Trump floated the possibility of suing to block Democrats from having anyone other than Biden on the ballot in November.

But election administration and legal experts said the timing of Biden’s exit on Sunday makes it unlikely that any Republican ballot access challenges will succeed, with some calling the idea “ridiculous” and “frivolous.” Democrats are on safe legal ground as they identify a new standard-bearer, they say, because the party hasn’t officially chosen its nominee. That typically occurs with a vote of delegates at the party’s convention.

It’s ridiculous for people to talk about ‘replacing Biden.’ He hasn’t been nominated yet,” said Richard Winger, a leading expert on state ballot access laws and the longtime editor of the “Ballot Access News” newsletter.

  • takeda@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They absolutely have no legal basis, my only worry is that they have activists in SCOTUS which showed us multiple times that they don’t care what the Constitution says.

    • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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      Exactly.

      It used to be the case that sane people with a modicum of understanding of our government/legal system, or even the ability to do a bit of research, they could just laugh this off.

      But uh, nope, now we live in corrupt/activist Supreme Court era, which throws out decades of precedent and functionally invents new laws as it pleases.

      • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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        What I love about Clarence Thomas is he is giving us the road map to oppressive systems we have to take down. He has observed the unspoken rules and has codified them into law with his rulings. When Clarence gets exorbitant gifts for his influence it’s not because he’s greedy, we’ll it is, but it’s also him saying, “these are the rules, I get rewarded because I have the seat of power.”

        Clarence is not a secret freedom fighter but he might as well be because he is shining a light and exposing the ugliness that is our judicial system.

    • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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      Historically speaking, we Americans usually ignore what the SCOTUS says. Virginia was practically segregated into the early 1970s, for example, well over a decade after Brown v Board of Education.

      That’s the hilarious part of the SCOTUS. They kind of don’t matter.


      The response to an unjust SCOTUS is to ignore them. Like what are they actually gonna do about it?

        • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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          Step 1 of the plan is to at least make people aware of the plan.

          There’s more options available than expanding the court or whatever. Ultimately, the reigns of power largely rest in Congress and the President. Supreme Court is the moral center, they’re only effective if people believe their judgements to be moral and just. Otherwise, their statements are just fancy words on a piece of obscure paper.

          Supreme Court has no ability to write laws or enforce them.

      • rainynight65
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        3 months ago

        You might want to talk to some people affected by the SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      There may be an issue with Ohio. The deadline for getting on the ballot the is like 2 days before the DNC, and we won’t officially know who the nominee will be until after the convention.

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    4 months ago

    GOP: but it was our only strategy!

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    3 months ago

    They already made it public that they will do everything to invalidate democrat votes and that they won’t accept any outcome that isn’t a Trump win.

    It’s going to be Jan 2021 but worse again.

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      Friendly reminder to check your voter registration. Many states are un-registering voters for dumb reasons.

      • CareHare@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Why is this even a thing in the USA? In Belgium, everyone over the age of 18 just gets a letter in the mail. Making people go for tedious registration and what not sounds very undemocratic to me.

        • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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          That’s because it is! Just one of the thousands of many little ways the American Republicans have made life worse for everyone, including their own. Gerrymandering and tampering with voter registration are historically Republican strategies that serve no purpose other than voter disenfranchisement. They can’t win a popular vote and they know it, so their best strategy is to prevent people from voting in the first place. Hence their history of arcane voter registration rules, disgustingly absurd gerrymandered districts, removal or last-minute changing of acceptable voting locations in Democratic areas, voter intimidation, even active voter endangerment via refusal of water bottles during summer heat - not as in they wouldn’t give you water at the voting lcoation - no, you aren’t allowed to have water, even if you brought your own, even if someone showed up and tried to donate water to you. They took it right out of our hands. Meanwhile we were standing in a line in a parking lot with no shade in 96F weather for multiple hours because local republican leadership also shut down all other democratic voting locations within an hour’s drive.

          It is disgustingly undemocratic, dangerous, abusive and frankly it’s embarrassing. These are not politicians, these are spoiled little children stamping their feat and screaming “no, I get to be king, and you have to go home!” They actively will not associate with the word “democracy” anymore because it’s too close to accidentally being called a Democrat.

          If you’ve noticed Americans being a little more pissy than usual recently in the last several years, it’s largely because people are starting to open their eyes to this truth. It’s nothing new, but it is starting to get noticed. Trump flipped over a big ol’ rock and suddenly everyone saw all the worms and slugs squirming underneath.

          • CareHare@sh.itjust.works
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            I actually caught myself mouthing “What the fuck” at the water part of your comment. That’s some third world country shit. Everyone’s entitled to water, it’s the most basic human right. How would one argue that a ruling like that benefits the people?

            • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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              Their argument, such that it is, argues that Democrats are running the country into the ground and that they cannot be allowed to make decisions for other people. Not that the people should be allowed to govern themselves, no, the people should only be allowed to vote for things that are “in their best interest” as defined by Republicans.

              Which is, obviously, horseshit. But a semi-significant percentage of our population eats up the anti-Democrat messaging and keeps enough of them in office that they can continue fucking with human rights without retribution.

            • Asafum@feddit.nl
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              “ThEy’Re BuYiNg VoTeS wItH wAtEr!”

              I’ve never heard about not being allowed to bring water, but I’ve definitely read about not being allowed to hand out water/sell water.

              There is no legitimate reason, only excuses to cover for their bullshit.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          On the surface, it’s not bad. If, for example, you move from one state to another, your previous state may not know you don’t live there anymore. So if they see you haven’t voted in that state for a while, they’ll assume you don’t live there and remove your name from their registration.

          The problem is, as usual, how it gives conservatives in the US cover to remove legitimate voters. If you haven’t moved but also haven’t voted for the last several election cycles, you might get removed even if you intend to vote in this election. And you can see how that’s a short jump to “Oh no, we accidentally removed a whole bunch of people who were going to vote against us and darn it, wouldn’t you know there’s no way to fix this in time!”

          • tyler@programming.dev
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            If, for example, you move from one state to another, your previous state may not know you don’t live there anymore. So if they see you haven’t voted in that state for a while, they’ll assume you don’t live there and remove your name from their registration.

            They always know, especially if you’re paying your taxes correctly. Try moving to Colorado. You’ll get registered immediately without doing anything and your ballot will be mailed to you. You don’t ever have to do anything in person.

            There’s no reason to unregister someone from voting. In any state.

            • Billiam@lemmy.world
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              Try moving to Colorado. You’ll get registered immediately without doing anything and your ballot will be mailed to you.

              In Kentucky, you have to go register yourself. And unless KY tells CO you’ve registered there, they wouldn’t know.

              • tyler@programming.dev
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                And unless KY tells CO you’ve registered there, they wouldn’t know.

                ? And why would that matter?

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          Why is this even a thing in the USA?

          Belgium has a population of only 11.7 Million, a population density of 387 per square kilometer, and a whopping 98.8 percent of the population is Urban.

          We have 30 times your population, 1/10th of your population density, and 20% less of our population is Urban.

          The United States has 28 Million people, more than twice your entire population, that MOVES every year. Over a million people immigrate into the United States every year, meaning we could literally populate your entire nation in just a decade.

          All of that means you cannot simply “send everyone a letter”.

          It’s like the old saw “Everything works fine in a small network.” So no offense but relatively speaking Belgium is a tiny network compared to what we’ve got going on in the United States.

          • tyler@programming.dev
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            Colorado handles it just fine. Sounds like you’re making excuses for your state, don’t lump all the states in with yours.

            • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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              We aren’t discussing a single state and if we were then Colorado has a population half of Belgium.

              Everything works fine in a small network.

              • tyler@programming.dev
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                We literally are discussing single states. The Federal government doesn’t run the voting, it’s individual states that do. So all voting improvements literally happen at an individual state level.

                Everything works fine in a small network.

                what a hilarious excuse for your state being shitty. This is such a tired and untrue trope it isn’t even funny anymore, it’s just sad.

                • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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                  We literally are discussing single states.

                  We are literally not. You need to scroll up and review.

                  “Why is this even a thing in the USA?” - Federal Government Question

                  “Does the IRS send a letter to everyone in the USA every year?”

                  Those are the questions I was asked and responded to.

                  The Federal government doesn’t run the voting, it’s individual states that do.

                  Yes, I’m aware of how our election system works. You should try figuring out how threaded comments work.

          • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
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            USA is big therefore they can’t have good things is bullshit.

            USA has a lot of people to send mails to, but it also has a lot of people to collect taxes from, those taxes pay for the mails.

            The cost to send mails should scale linearly with population, just like taxes. Therefore economics is not a problem. If anything, more mails should mean cheaper per mail since economics of scale take place to bring down costs.

            Logistics isn’t an issue either. Just tell each state to sort it themselves. Each US state has roughly the same population as European countries, and they manage the logistics.

            • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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              Each US state has roughly the same population as European countries, and they manage the logistics.

              Yes, and it works at the State level…which is precisely why I drew the parallel to European Countries.

              HOWEVER I wasn’t asked about States sending them. Every comment I replied to was asked in the context of the FEDERAL Government.

              Threaded comments are not new tech, figure it out.

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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        Thankfully I’m in the clear where I live. Got some mail in ballets for a different election for everyone in my apartment. Just hoping that nobody tries to do like what was done last time and have republican mail people dump the mail in votes somewhere random. Luckily it wasn’t anywhere near my neck of the woods, but I’m always worried it’ll happen.

      • norimee@lemmy.world
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        I would have bet on a more drastic response to a mob attacking an official building in the first place. But that didn’t happen either.

        • thegr8goldfish@startrek.website
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          That’s for sure. Every one of those fuckers should have gone directly to jail that night. If that had been a George Floyd protest they would have just opened fire.

          • pastel_de_airfryer@lemmy.eco.br
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            That’s what we did in Brazil.

            Bolsonaro’s clowns pulled that same shit over here and almost two thousand of them were in jail by the end of the day.

        • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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          Donald Trump controlled the DC National Guard on January 6th 2021. Joe Biden (or maybe Kamala Harris, if Joe steps down early) will control the DC National Guard in 2025.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    It’s stupid enough that Ohio demands that the nominee be on the ballot before the convention and even they give a deadline after August.

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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    You know as they say: if it looks ridiculous and sounds ridiculous, it’s most likely the GOP.

    • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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      Right? I used to think it would be ridiculous for a former president to foment a violent insurrection of their own government and not be held accountable for their words and actions.

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    Just like all of Trump’s election fraud cases (over 60 of them), this will be immediately thrown out as superfluous and/or for inability to provide any evidence.

    Dems haven’t even held the convention to nominate yet, so GOP can keep cryin’ until November.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      I’m just waiting for SCOTUS to declare a winner again. I doubt that will go over as smoothly as it did in 2000.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          There’s unpopular and there’s congress refusing to listen to SCOTUS while competing protestors face off in D.C.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        Hopefully it’s nowhere near close enough for that, but we shall see soon enough.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    Given the bizzaro timeline we’re in it would not surprise me to get a crazy outcome:

    • GOP lawsuit wins, forcing the ballot to be Biden
    • Biden wins the general election, immediately resigns and…
    • Harris is the President.

    What would be really hilarious is, I think that would allow her to serve two more 4 year terms after her 2025-2029 term ends because she would not have run as President the first time.

    • excral
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      What would be really hilarious is, I think that would allow her to serve two more 4 year terms after her 2025-2029 term ends because she would not have run as President the first time.

      That’s incorrect. The 22nd amendment states: “no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once”. So unless Biden would wait for at least two years before stepping down, Harris could only be elected for one more term.

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        Thanks for this. I was going to correct them, but didn’t really wanna type out and reference why they were wrong. You are a champion.

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    it’s hilarious that they’re proving in real time just how pants-shittingly scared of harris they are.

    “keep the old man in!!! we don’t want to go up against a younger woman whom we can’t publicly criticize for not being white!”

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      … whom we can’t stop ourselves from publicly criticizing for not being white!

      FTFY

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      “DEI” is the new codeword for the “n-word” so they say it all day every day…

      Imagine thinking you’re being “smart” by not being openly racist, by being openly racist in your accusation that “this person couldn’t possibly get here by their merits, they’re here because of their skin color.”

      …yep still racist there little buddy…

      • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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        Just play dumb and say “DEI? What does that mean”, and they’re guaranteed to say something racist just explaining it in their own words.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      It’s s different with trump because he has already secured the nomination. Biden was just the presumptive nominee, which is why they have no standing because there is no nominee yet.

      After that, there is probably a period of time where the wheels are in motion to put people on the ballot where they cannot turn back.

      Like do you think the day before the election they could just swap out a candidate? What about printing ballots and distributing them? There has to be some kind of cut off.

  • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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    They should have been running on a platform instead of grievance politics. Then it wouldn’t matter who they were running against.