Appeals Court Shuts Down Lawsuit, Allows Texas To Continue Enforcing Election Security Measures
A federal appeals court has overturned a judge’s ruling that effectively barred Texas election officials from verifying absentee ballots by ensuring that the signatures on them match those of voters.
The Hill reported that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voted Monday to overturn a September ruling that denied Texas officials the right to disqualify a ballot if the signature did not match that of the one on file for the voter.
The three-judge appeals panel ruled unanimously in Texas’ favor.
At the district court level, Judge Orlando Garcia, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, sided with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that claimed that by requiring signatures on ballots to match, Texas was being unfair to voters.
Garcia, with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, stated that “under the current statutory system, voters face a serious risk that their mail-in ballots will be improperly rejected based on a perceived signature mismatch.”
The statement might have sounded good to Garcia, but it basically ignored the potential for fraud or other irregularities.
Texas is going to great lengths to ensure voting integrity.
Leave it to an activist judge appointed by a Democrat to try and undo that.
Thankfully, the appeals court saw the case differently, and overruled Garcia.
Judge Jerry Smith, writing for the appeals court, stated, “Because Texas’s strong interest in safeguarding the integrity of its elections from voter fraud far outweighs any burden the state’s voting procedures place on the right to vote, we stay the injunction pending appeal.”
The Hill noted that Smith was appointed to the court by former President Ronald Reagan. The other two judges were Judge Patrick Higginbotham, also appointed by Reagan, and Judge Andy Oldham, appointed by President Donald Trump.
Not only does the court’s ruling help the Lone Star State in its challenge to weed out potentially fraudulent mail-in ballots, it also highlights the importance of election consequences with regard to the judiciary.
A Democrat appointee sided with activists who were in favor of less election security, but an appointee by a Republican president wrote on behalf of the court that upheld a maneuver to clamp down on potential fraud. He was supported by two other judges appointed by Republicans.
This is a reminder that Trump’s success in appointing hundreds of federal judges will have ramifications for decades to come.
Let’s hope, for the sake of Texans, that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t get his hands on the signature authentication case.
Roberts already proved this week he is siding with the court’s liberals with regard to election security.
Roberts was the key vote on Tuesday to allow Pennsylvania Democrats to dictate a federal election date by agreeing that mail-in ballots must be counted for up to three days after the Nov. 3 election.
In a 4-4 decision, the high court declined to grant a stay to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allowed mail-in ballots to be counted if they were received by Friday, Nov. 6. The tie meant the Pennsylvania court’s decision stood, NBC News reported.
John Roberts blows it again. What a truly horrible and politically-motivated justice. Disaster. https://t.co/MNVbL60GIR
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 20, 2020
The confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett — expected next week — would give the court a 5-4 conservative majority made up of Barrett, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor make up the liberal wing, with the ostensibly conservative Roberts taking on the role of the floating moderate.
It would be an understatement to say that Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, has been a colossal disappointment on the court.
Barrett is expected to face a confirmation vote on the Senate floor on Monday.
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