MA Republican Candidates Extend State Election Results Challenge

Salem MA

31 December, 2020

11:57 AM

Description

SALEM, MA — The Republican challenger in the 2020 U.S. 6th Congressional District race is pushing forward in a lawsuit against the state over election results on the basis that the allowance of no-excuse, mail-in ballots, ballot drop boxes and early voting because of the coronavirus health crisis violated the state constitution. John Paul Moran, who unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Democrat Seth Moulton, was one of five candidates who moved the lawsuit previously filed in federal court to state court on the advice of a federal judge, the candidates said. Congressional candidate Caroline Colarusso joined Moran, along with state legislative candidates Craig Valdez and Ingrid Centurion, and state Senate candidate Steve Hall, in the state court filing in Worcester District Court on Wednesday. "Based on our new legal council's advice and the recommendation of the federal judge who suggested that our complaint is better suited for state court, we have decided to take that advice," Moran said in a statement. At a hearing earlier this month, U.S. District Court Allison Burroughs said the plaintiffs should have sued before the election if they were worried about expanded voting. "What you don't get to do is look at an entire arrangement for voting and not say a word until you lose the election, and then complain about the process," Burroughs told Moran, who was speaking on behalf of the group, during the hearing. She suggested at the hearing that it was unclear if the lawsuit was fit for federal court and that it would be "terribly unfair to all of the people that showed up to vote in this election" to block the results this late. Official state election results show North Shore citizens went with Moulton over Moran in the general election by a margin of 65.5 percent to 34.5 percent. "This lawsuit is not about winners or losers and I want to make this abundantly clear," Moran said. "It is about the rule of law and our constitution. It is about engaged and committed citizens willing to stick their necks out and ask the hard questions, and about regaining trust the electoral process. It is about regular working-class people taking on activists turned politicians who have turned our elections upside down. "The people who have 'lost' here are the people of the Commonwealth whose rights have been trampled upon by their elected officials. This was a giant step towards exposing the illegality and unconstitutionality of their actions and bringing integrity back to our elections in Massachusetts." The lawsuit charges that several voting alternatives — including no-excuse mail-in voting, early voting and drop box voting — were "in violation of an explicit state constitutional provision that strictly limits the conditions where a voter can vote by mail and the times when voting may take place in the Commonwealth other than at the polls on Election Day." The changes were made, in part, to alleviate Election Day congestion at the polls amid the worldwide coronavirus pandemic. The suit claims the state "illegally used the pandemic as an excuse to overstep their authority by expanding absentee voting to anyone for any reason." Did you find this article useful? Invite a friend to subscribe to Patch. "The little-known fact is that the state could have properly addressed the pandemic by allowing any person taking precautions relating to COVID-19 to vote by absentee ballot by reason of physical disability — a condition covered by existing law," Centurion said. "And, instead of allowing for weeks of early voting, which is also clearly unconstitutional, Secretary (William) Galvin and the legislature could have provided for public health and safety just as well by expanding the number of polling locations on Election Day to allow for safe social distancing in light of the pandemic. So there was no justification for this illegal bill at all." Colarusso called the pandemic law changes "an enormous overreach in the birthplace of freedom, home to the oldest surviving Constitution in the United States." "If we allow the Constitutional process to become a mere suggestion it will become nonexistent — impacting our right and our very freedom." More Patch Coverage: Judge Rebukes Republican Candidates Suing To Nullify MA Election