Rand Paul: Courts Didn’t Fully Hear Trump’s Election Fraud Cases

(USA Features) Sen. Rand Paul said that federal and state courts did not fully entertain former President Donald Trump’s myriad of election fraud complaints, thereby leaving questions and concerns about the allegations unanswered and unaddressed.

He went on to say that most of the lawsuits brought by his campaign legal team were dismissed for alleged lack of standing, not on any merits of the case.

After the Nov. 3 election, Trump’s team filed several dozen lawsuits in at least a half-dozen key battleground states but most of them were tossed before being heard.

“The one thing I think is untrue is that the courts fully heard this,” Paul said at a Heritage Foundation event earlier this week. “Courts have been hesitant to get involved in elections.”

He went on to say that judges have to decide at some point whether elected officials other than state legislators can alter voting rules and laws on their own, which appears to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution, regardless of the reason.

Last fall ahead of the elections, laws were altered to allow for things like additional mail-in balloting and unmonitored drop boxes on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. Voting ID laws were also paused and voting deadlines extended.

The Kentucky Republican also said that state legislatures could pass laws that specifically prohibited officials like secretaries of state from changing voting laws regardless of the reason.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a Republican-led challenge to changes in Pennsylvania’s election laws, leading Justice Clarence Thomas, in a dissent from, to say the court “failed to settle” the dispute before the Nov. 3 contest.

“One wonders what the Court waits for. We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us. I respectfully dissent,” he wrote.

“That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election. But that may not be the case in the future,” Thomas added. “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”