Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Boockvar

• Decision Date: 21 November 2020
• Docket Number: No. 4:20-CV-02078,4:20-CV-02078
• Parties: DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. Kathy BOOCKVAR, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

502 F.Supp.3d 899

DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Kathy BOOCKVAR, et al., Defendants.

No. 4:20-CV-02078

United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania.

Filed November 21, 2020

Brian C. Caffrey, Marc A. Scaringi, Rudolph William Giuliani, Scaringi & Scaringi PC, Rudolph Giuliani, PLLC, Harrisburg, PA, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Thomas W. King, III, Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP, Buter, PA, for Intervenor Plaintiff.

Daniel T. Brier, Donna A. Walsh, John B. Dempsey, Karen Mascio Romano, Keli M. Neary, Nicole J. Boland, Stephen Moniak, John Coit, John B. Hill, Andrew F. Szefi, Christina C. Matthias, Mark A. Aronchick, Michele D. Hangley, Robert A. Wiygul, Virginia Scott, Elizabeth A. Dupuis, Molly E. Meacham, Edward D. Rogers, Elizabeth Wingfield, Terence M. Grugan, Timothy D. Katsiff, Brian J. Taylor, Timothy P. Brennan, Myers Brier & Kelly, LLP, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, Office of Attorney General, Office of Attorney General Civil Litigation Section, Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller, Scott Law Office, Babst, Calland, Clements and Zomnir, P.C., Ballard Spahr LLP, King Spry Herman Freund & Faul LLC, Scranton, PA, Harrisburg, PA, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, State College, PA, Bethlehem, PA, Easton, PA, for Defendant.

Jon Greenbaum, Witold J. Walczak, Adriel I. Cepeda Derieux, Benjamin D. Geffen, Claudia De Palma, Dale E. Ho, David Meir Zionts, Ezra D. Rosenberg, Ihaab Syed, Marian K. Schneider, Mary M. McKenzie, Rani Gupta, Sarah E. Brannon, Shankar Duraiswamy, Sophia Lin Lakin, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law District Of Columbia, American Civil Liberties Union of PA, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, PA, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Palo Alto, CA, for Intervenor/Interpleader Defendant.

Remy Green, Jonathan Wallace, Sean M. Shultz, Zachary Michael Wallen, Nancy A. Temple, Richard Bernstein, James P. DeAngelo, Joshua John Voss, Shohin Vance, Matthew H. Haverstick, Cohen & Green P.L.L.C., Hanft & Knight, P.C., Chalmers & Adams LLC, Katten & Temple LLP, McNees Wallace & Nurick, Kleinbard LLC, Ridgewood, NY, Amagansett, NY, Carlisle, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Chicago, IL, Harrisburg, PA, Philadelphia, PA, for Amicus.

Alex M. Lacey, Ari Holtzblatt, John Michael Geise, Kyle J. Semroc, Lalitha D. Madduri, Marc E. Elias, Seth Waxman, Uzoma Nkwonta, Witold J. Walczak, Clifford B. Levine, Robert M. Linn, Dentons Cohen & Grigsby P.C., Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, Perkins Coie LLP, American Civil Liberties Union of PA, Cohen & Grigsby, PC, Pittsburgh, PA, Washington, DC, for Intervenor.

Jeffrey Cutler, York, PA, pro se.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Matthew W. Brann, United States District Judge

Pending before this Court are various motions to dismiss Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint. Plaintiffs in this matter are Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the "Trump Campaign"), and two voters, John Henry and Lawrence Roberts (the "Individual Plaintiffs").¹ Defendants, who filed these motions to dismiss, include seven Pennsylvania counties (the "Defendant Counties"), as well as Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar.²

I. INTRODUCTION

In this action, the Trump Campaign and the Individual Plaintiffs (collectively, the "Plaintiffs") seek to discard millions of votes legally cast by Pennsylvanians from all corners – from Greene County to Pike County, and everywhere in between. In other words, Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens.

That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more. At bottom, Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Therefore, I grant Defendants' motions and dismiss Plaintiffs' action with prejudice.

II. BACKGROUND

A. Legal and Factual Background

The power to regulate and administer federal elections arises from the Constitution.³ "Because any state authority to regulate election to those offices could not precede their very creation by the Constitution, such power ‘had to be delegated to, rather than reserved to by, the States.’ "⁴ Consequently, the Elections Clause "delegated to the States the power to regulate the ‘Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,’ subject to a grant of authority to Congress to ‘make or alter such Regulations.’ "⁵ Accordingly, States' power to "regulate the incidents of such elections, including balloting" is limited to "the exclusive delegation of power under the Elections Clause."⁶

Pennsylvania regulates the "times, places, and manner" of its elections through the Pennsylvania Election Code.⁷ The Commonwealth's Constitution mandates that "[e]lections shall be free and equal; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage."⁸ Recognizing this as a foundational principle, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declared that the purpose of the Election Code is to promote "freedom of choice, a fair election and an honest election return."⁹

In October 2019, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania enacted Act 77, which, "for the first time in Pennsylvania," extended the opportunity for all registered voters to vote by mail.¹⁰ Following the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, the General Assembly enacted laws regulating the mail-in voting system.¹¹ Section 3150.16 of the Election Code sets forth procedural requirements that voters must follow in order for their ballot to be counted.¹² These procedures require, for example, that voters mark their ballots in pen or pencil, place them in secrecy envelopes, and that ballots be received by the county elections board on or before 8:00 P.M. on Election Day.¹³

Nowhere in the Election Code is any reference to "curing" ballots, or the related practice of "notice-and-cure." This practice involves notifying mail-in voters who submitted procedurally defective mail-in ballots of these deficiencies and allowing those voters to cure their ballots.¹⁴ Notified voters can cure their ballots and have their vote counted by requesting and submitting a provisional ballot.¹⁵

Recently, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Democratic Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar addressed whether counties are required to adopt a notice-and-cure policy under the Election Code.¹⁶ Holding that they are not, the court declined to explicitly answer whether such a policy is necessarily forbidden.¹⁷

Following this decision, Secretary Boockvar sent an email on November 2, 2020 encouraging counties to "provide information to party and candidate representatives during the pre-canvass that identifies the voters whose ballots have been rejected" so those ballots could be cured.¹⁸ From the face of the complaint, it is unclear which counties were sent this email, which counties received this email, or which counties ultimately followed Secretary Boockvar's guidance.

Some counties chose to implement a notice-and-cure procedure while others did not.¹⁹ Importantly, however, Plaintiffs allege only that Philadelphia County implemented such a policy.²⁰ In contrast, Plaintiffs also claim that Lancaster and York Counties (as well as others) did not adopt any cure procedures and thus rejected all ballots cast with procedural deficiencies instead of issuing these voters provisional ballots.²¹

Both Individual Plaintiffs had their ballots cancelled in the 2020 Presidential Election.²² John Henry submitted his mail-in ballot to Lancaster County; however, it was cancelled on November 6, 2020 because he failed to place his ballot in the required secrecy envelope.²³ Similarly, after submitting his ballot to Fayette County, Lawrence Roberts discovered on November 9, 2020 that his ballot had been cancelled for an unknown reason.²⁴ Neither was given an opportunity to cure his ballot.²⁵

B. The 2020 Election Results

In large part due to the coronavirus pandemic still plaguing our nation, the rate of mail-in voting in 2020 was expected to increase dramatically. As anticipated, millions more voted by mail this year than in past elections. For weeks before Election Day, ballots were cast and collected. Then, on November 3, 2020, millions more across Pennsylvania and the country descended upon their local voting precincts and cast ballots for their preferred candidates. When the votes were counted, the Democratic Party's candidate for President, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his running-mate, Kamala D. Harris, were determined to have received more votes than the incumbent ticket, President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Michael R. Pence. As of the day of this Memorandum Opinion, the Biden/Harris ticket had received 3,454,444 votes, and the Trump/Pence ticket had received 3,373,488 votes, giving the Biden ticket a lead of more than 80,000 votes, per the Pennsylvania state elections return website.²⁶ These results will become official when counties certify their results to Secretary Boockvar on November 23, 2020 – the result Plaintiffs seek to enjoin with this lawsuit.

C. Procedural History

Although this case was...