> By dismissing purely on procedural grounds, you weaken the democratic system.
You don't seem to understand how the justice system works. Courts can't just decide to investigate whatever they want to investigate, if there is no standing to hear a case then there is no case to be heard.
Also there were some fraud claims that were dismissed on the merits (because they were utterly baseless) so it's not true that they were all dismissed on procedural grounds.
> Bush v. Gore
The Bush v. Gore lawsuit was about how to deal with ambiguously marked ballots (remember the hanging chads). No insane Chavez/Dominion/dead voter/whatever election fraud conspiracy theories involved.
Nothing was stopping the Supreme Court from hearing the (e.g.) Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit; it's up to the court itself to decide standing (which also isn't even a legislative concept, but that doesn't matter either way).
I agree there were a ton of crazy claims and people flying around (e.g., Lin Wood, either crazy or a scammer or some combination of both), but not all claims were on the face of it crazy.
As a practical matter, if you want your democracy to function well, you need most people to have confidence in the election process; I think you do this by (1) allowing free discussion of claims of fraud in public forums and (2) allowing interrogation of serious claims in court, so everyone can see arguments & counterarguments put forward, and also feel that they've been given a fair shot at legal remedy.
To a large extent (1) was supressed (on e.g. youtube and twitter), and (2) mostly did not happen.
Now we're seeing massive purges on social media of Trump-supporting accounts, which is again, not a good way to increase people's faith in the results of the election.
> Bush v. Gore
Not that meaningful of a difference between contesting votes based on hanging chads vs. poor signature matches, imo.
What do "legislative" concepts have to do with the judiciary? You're just throwing around random jargon you don't understand.
> but not all claims were on the face of it crazy.
All the fraud claims were crazy. Every single one of them.
> allowing interrogation of serious claims in court
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a single plaintiff with standing (i.e. Trump or another candidate who allegedly lost a race due to fraud) ever litigated a voter fraud claim in court. Do you know why? Because no serious government lawyer is willing to destroy their reputation by litigating obviously frivolous claims. All the fraud claims were litigated by 3rd party cranks with no standing, hence their dismissal on "procedural grounds". The only lawsuits initiated by Trump or other candidates directly were procedural ones (e.g. complaining about whether or not certain deadlines were changed legally), NOT fraud related. If no one with standing wants to put their reputation on the line to litigate nonsense fraud claims then it is not the fault of the courts that the fraud claims cannot be properly evaluated.
> Nothing was stopping the Supreme Court from hearing the (e.g.) Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit; it's up to the court itself to decide standing
Yes there was, it's called federalism. Texas doesn't get a say in how Pennsylvania holds its elections. Texas v. Pennsylvania also had absolutely nothing to do with fraud. Texas was just complaining about changes PA made to PA state election laws. And again, the SCOTUS response was, correctly, "fuck off, state's rights".
> If they are groundless, great; many people will recognize that and you will increase confidence in the results.
This is extraordinarily naive. There is no evidence of fraud and every single non-brainwashed person is already aware of that. The ONLY reason why so many people believe fraud happened is because Donald Trump says so, and a large fraction of the population treat him as an infallible cult leader. It doesn't matter how many cases the courts rule on and how thoroughly everything crank theory is investigated. The Trump cult will just claim the courts are controlled by the deep state pedophiles.
Roughly half the nation supported Trump; from polling, it's somewhere around 25%-50% of the population that thinks there was fraud. It's not reasonable to just write all of those people off as crazy cult members.
If you want a healthy, democratic society, you need to engage concerns with good faith.
How'd that quote go, that was so popular last summer?
You don't seem to understand how the justice system works. Courts can't just decide to investigate whatever they want to investigate, if there is no standing to hear a case then there is no case to be heard.
Also there were some fraud claims that were dismissed on the merits (because they were utterly baseless) so it's not true that they were all dismissed on procedural grounds.
> Bush v. Gore
The Bush v. Gore lawsuit was about how to deal with ambiguously marked ballots (remember the hanging chads). No insane Chavez/Dominion/dead voter/whatever election fraud conspiracy theories involved.