Post-Election Challenges

Proposal:

A post-election challenge to the integrity or legitimacy of an election must be pursued in court.

Any person who observed or has evidence of violations of the law or regulations in relation to the election may sue the government office or the private party who committed those violations. If there are multiple such lawsuits against the same person or entity, the judge may require the plaintiffs to combine their cases and to choose a lead attorney.

A plaintiff who successfully proves fraud may request the judge to overturn the fraudulent votes. The election result may only be cancelled if the total number of overturned votes from any combination of election challenges is sufficient to change the outcome of the election.

If any candidate, including the impeached official, is proven to have been involved or cooperative or complacent in the effort to cheat, meaning the candidate was provably aware of efforts to cheat in the election and did not report them to authorities or even speak publicly against them, that candidate would be disqualified from participating in the following election.

Anyone who temporarily occupies the office during the time between impeachment and election has the primary duty of organizing the next election and is not authorized to sign any permanent new laws or regulations, only to issue executive orders as needed to ensure the integrity and legitimacy of the next election.

A person who knowingly and intentionally challenge the election results in court without any evidence, or commits perjury during the proceedings, may be charged with a felony misdemeanor.

Intent:

To establish a mechanism for legitimate criticism of an election operation, to deter people from wasting the government’s time and misleading the public by challenging an election without evidence, and to punish people who do challenge an election in court without evidence or with false testimony.

Discussion:

If there are any challenges to the integrity or legitimacy of the election for the chief executive in a city, state, or the federal government, those can be handled in the courts.

Although only a losing candidate has standing to sue the government to challenge the election result, the candidate may rely on a variety of investigators and attorneys to collect and compile the evidence for the challenge.

Whether or not the post-election challenges overturn enough votes to affect the result, if any fraud is proven in court the local and state officials who committed crimes against the people by attempting to subvert the election results must be held accountable.

If enough votes are overturned to affect the result, the fraudulently elected official must be impeached by the legislature and a new election must be conducted. However, the fraudulently elected official may not have committed any fraud themselves, so the impeachment is merely a removal from office and criminal charges after removal would only be brought if that elected official was proven in court to have been a part of or a leader of any effort to cheat in the election.