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.

    • sp3ctr4l@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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        4 months ago

        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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      4 months ago

      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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          4 months ago

          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.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
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    4 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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        4 months ago

        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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          4 months ago

          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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            4 months ago

            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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          4 months ago

          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.

  • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    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.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    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@feddit.org
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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.

      • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        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.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    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!”

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      … whom we can’t stop ourselves from publicly criticizing for not being white!

      FTFY

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      4 months ago

      “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.

  • 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.

  • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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    Maybe don’t have a platform where the only thing you do is shit on the other person and call them kindergarten level nicknames? What a bunch of snowflakes.