Historic Judicial Watch Victory: Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Counting of Ballots Received after Election Day


 

Congress statutorily designated a singular “day for the election” of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors. Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this “day for the election” is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials. Because Mississippi’s statute allows ballot receipt up to five days after the federal election day, it is preempted by federal law. We reverse the district court’s contrary judgment and remand for further proceedings.

Counting untimely, illegal, and invalid votes, such as those received in violation of federal law, substantially increases the pool of total votes cast and dilutes the weight of votes cast by Plaintiff’s members and others in support of Plaintiff’s federal nominees.

The owner [redacted] called the NYC Duty Desk stating she has pictures of agents going into the house, covering up cameras and using the bathroom. The address in question is 54 Wendell Ave., Pittsfield, MA 01201. She just wanted to know who had given permission to go inside and use the space.

The building in question is [redacted]. It was a multi-story building with a salon on the ground floor, and residences above. I entered the day prior during working hours to ask one of the employees about [redacted]. I have no knowledge of any of the teams assigned to TSD entering the building at any time. [Redacted]

At least one of the residents were on the property and I saw them out on the balcony multiple times. I have no idea if they might have given someone permission to enter to use the bathroom. SA [special agent] [redacted] advised that [redacted].

I don’t know the extent of the issues the owner has, just what you see in his forwarded thread. If any further information is necessary, please let me know.

See below from TSI [technical security investigators] [redacted] the TSD lead for the visit.

Also I was informed after the visit by the Arrival Departure agent (SA) [redacted] that local PD [police department] were utilizing the bathroom within the building. VPD [vice presidential division] did not give permission to use this facility. However, local PD did seem to have a relationship with facility owner and stated they have worked together before! I was made aware that potentially one Agent may have used the facility as well which was the site 2 PI [protective intelligence] agent (SA) [redacted] which was paired with his local PD counterpart.

CSP [critical systems protection] Agent [redacted] informed us of camera vulnerabilities located on the hair salon facing the A/D [area/departure] area. I was informed that attempts were made to contact owners but unsuccessful. Day of the visit SA [redacted] mitigated threats due to covering the exterior camera.

I spoke to [redacted] the owner of the Four One Three Salon in Pittsfield. She told me that on the day of Harris's visit, on July 27, she closed down her salon, which is located just behind the Colonial Theatre where Harris held a fundraiser.

She said that a Secret Service agent taped over the exterior security camera of her salon. And then a couple of hours later, her lock was picked and several people - including one person wearing a Secret Service uniform - entered the salon to use the bathroom. They left the door unlocked when they left.

Security footage that [redacted] shared with me backs up her version of events.

[The owner] told me that she later spoke to an EMT [Emergency Medical Technician], who told her that the ‘person in charge’ of the Secret Service that day told people to use her bathroom’s salon [sic]. She said she spoke to someone at a Secret Service field office (it wasn’t clear to me if it was the Massachusetts or New York field office – Pittsfield is in Massachusetts just across the border from New York), who blamed the local police.

With the race for the presidency hurtling to the finish line, Judicial Watch will dispatch an election integrity team to Wisconsin to help ensure free and fair elections. Wisconsin is a critical swing state with a history of tumultuous electoral contests. “Judicial Watch’s teams will monitor the election in Wisconsin to expose and deter any fraud,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Improper or illegal election activities are also the focus of Judicial Watch’s new Election Integrity Hotline. Voters who witness fraud or intimidation, or suspicious activities at polling places or with voting machines, can send details to JW election experts at [email protected].

Judicial Watch has long been a national leader in ensuring election integrity and voting rights. Judicial Watch’s election integrity team is led by Robert Popper, the former deputy chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a veteran poll observer.

“Voter fraud in one form or another is a feature of every election,” Popper says. “It can be impersonation fraud, absentee ballot fraud, registration fraud, double voting, noncitizen voting, or voting by those ineligible under state law. It’s hard to detect and prove, especially where the law requires a showing of specific intent, but we know it is there. And sometimes fraud can swing a close election. Clean elections are a critical component of an effectively functioning democracy. Dirty elections undermine confidence in the democratic system.”

A key weapon in the fight to keep elections free and fair is the National Voter Registration Act, which mandates that states make “a reasonable effort” to remove from voting rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have been disqualified from voting due to death or change of residence. States often dodge this responsibility, creating opportunities for election fraud.

Legal pressure from Judicial Watch under the NVRA has led to the removal from voter rolls of more than four million ineligible voters nationwide. JW has spearheaded major voter roll cleanups in California, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Colorado, and elsewhere. Cleaner voter rolls mean cleaner elections. You can learn more about JW’s voter roll cleanups here.

Judicial Watch fights on other legal fronts as well. In 2022, we defeated a highly partisan Maryland redistricting plan initiated by Democrats in the state legislature. Last year, we compelled Illinois to provide more transparency in its state-wide centralized list of registered voters. Earlier this month, we won a major victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court ruling allowing absentee ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day in Mississippi.

“Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors,” the Fifth Circuit noted in its ruling. “Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton hailed the ruling. “This is a historic victory for election integrity and voter rights and confidence,” Tom said. “This is a precedent that ensures that only ballots that arrive by Election Day can be counted under federal law. We hope this begins a national movement to increase voter confidence, comply with federal law, and limit voter fraud by counting ballots that arrive only by Election Day.”

Besides compromising the safety of Americans by releasing over half a million illegal immigrants with criminal records in communities throughout the United States, the Biden administration has ignited yet another crisis by failing to properly screen migrants for contagious diseases. Judicial Watch has long reported on the serious health threat presented by illegal aliens and a decade ago exposed that tens of thousands of illegal immigrant minors (Unaccompanied Alien Children—UAC) under Obama fueled a deadly respiratory virus epidemic that struck American kids across the country and killed at least nine. Months earlier a U.S. Congressman, who is also a medical doctor, had confirmed that UAC were bringing in serious diseases including swine flu, dengue fever, tuberculosis, and Ebola virus. In a letter to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Georgia lawmaker, Phil Gingrey, warned of a “severe and dangerous” crisis because the young migrants were importing infectious diseases from Central America that are considered to be largely eradicated in the U.S.

That was over a decade ago under Obama’s weak border policies and, predictably, the problem has worsened significantly during the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis that has gripped the nation under Biden and his laughable border czar, Kamala Harris. Besides the detrimental impact on national security, civilian safety, and taxpayer-funded programs (among others), mass migration is compromising health. Specifically, tuberculosis (TB), a deadly infectious disease that attacks the lungs and was once considered to be eradicated in the U.S., is on the rise. A report published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a nonprofit dedicated to researching immigration issues, reveals that after decades of decline TB is resurfacing in the United States. “One key factor of the resurgence of TB in the U.S. is open borders and mass immigration,” FAIR researchers found. “The massive, unregulated influx of migrants from countries with higher TB rates than the United States has helped spread the disease. Even legal immigrants and refugees—who are required to undergo medical screenings before arriving in the United States—may have latent TB which then progresses to active TB and becomes transmissible once inside the United States.”

TB cases in the U.S. increased by 34% between 2020 and 2023 and the number of TB cases is now higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to figures in the report. Nationally, 76% of TB cases in 2023 occurred in foreign-born patients and counties, states as well as metropolitan areas with high foreign-born populations have larger rates of TB than those with lower foreign-born populations. “Some countries of origin for both legal and illegal aliens have TB rates as high as 60 times the U.S. rate,” the FAIR report states, adding that “the government’s health screening for TB in potential immigrants is deficient” and that some categories of illegal immigrants do not undergo any type of health screening. Besides, latent TB is not grounds for inadmissibility even though some U.S. border regions have “TB rates exceeding rates in high-risk countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon,” researchers found. It is important to note that the cost of treating each case of TB is more than $20,000 and can reach over $500,000 if it is drug-resistant, FAIR points out.

“Data clearly indicate that the prevalence of tuberculosis is, in part, a function of immigration,” FAIR researchers write. “Medical experts have long acknowledged this connection.” For example, in 1990 the CDC wrote that many TB cases in the U.S. occur among foreign-born people with asymptomatic infection when they entered the United States. More recently, research published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) determined that for countries with low TB rates, “immigration is an important factor in TB epidemiology, where migrants may originate from countries with substantially higher TB burden.” Incredibly, screening procedures for illegal immigrants entering the U.S. do not adequately guard against the spread of TB even though federal law states that aliens with communicable diseases “of public significance” are inadmissible. “However, the vast majority of aliens granted visas or who otherwise enter the U.S. are never medically screened,” FAIR researchers found. “Even for those who are medically screened, the standard for admission is lax, as it only excludes active TB and allows individuals with latent TB to enter the country, resulting in the importation of latent TB into the U.S.