A Question of Standing

Over the past two decades you may have noticed that court cases are being dismissed more frequently due to a lack of standing. The doctrine of standing and other Dismissal Doctrines have been used to deny The People our most foundational right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, id est, access the courts for dispute resolution. Given the imminence of a historic election, a recent petition to the Supreme Court is explored here in the context of standing.

A Petition for Writ of Mandamus regarding state election processes was filed on October 16, 2024 in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Petitioners, FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation (FFF), served the Respondents, “50 States Secretaries of State” with the petition. Expedited emergency review was requested.

Replying via text message to an inquiry regarding status, Bradford Geyer, Founder of FFF, responded, “all Secretaries of State (including DC — that included 4 Lt. Governors acting as SoS’s)” were served “by email on Thursday October 17, 2024.” Geyer added, “On Saturday we sent by certified return receipt requested…that they should receive today [10/22/2024] at the latest.”

A Writ of Mandamus is “an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion.” The All Writs Act (28 U.S. Code § 1651) by Act of Congress establishes the authority for the Supreme Court and all courts to issue writs of mandamus.

FFF’s petition, summarized, is a request for the Supreme Court to order all 50 states to use “absolute voter identification, paper ballots and hand counting for the 2024 general elections…” FFF asserts that serious election issues currently involve “vulnerabilities in voter registration, voter verification, vote tabulation, vote reporting, mass media electioneering, and social media censorship.”

Particularized evidence in the petition includes that voter rolls are compromised, illegal aliens are registered to vote and have voted, voting machine software and hardware cannot be made secure from hacking, and election workers have been threatened and intimidated to certify the results regardless of witnessing irregularities.

The Petitioners argue that the current system is so open to corruption that few in society will trust the results of the election unless the requested relief is granted; and such distrust may spill over into violence.

Standing

The greatest challenge the Petitioners face is that which is also central to the ongoing erosion of civil society in America. Standing Doctrine will likely be one of the Dismissal Doctrines used by some of the Secretaries of State in their Motion to Dismiss FFF’s petition; and they will likely reference the case Ashcroft v Iqbal (2009), which has been cited 271,940 times since 2009, a rate 30 times greater than prior popularly cited cases involving other hurdles to achieve standing.

Standing Doctrine has become the linchpin issue in nearly all civil cases in the United States. Former President Donald Trump often explains that approximately sixty cases filed regarding the 2020 general election were dismissed due to a purported lack of standing. None of the cases were heard in substantive arguments involving evidence. Id est, none reached the Discovery phase of litigation.

Dismissals due to lack of standing allow issues to fester in society rather than be decided in the courts. Incivility grows and justice is delayed or abandoned because disputes are left unresolved. The courts’ primary mission is dispute resolution, especially in “controversies,” as expressed in Article III § 2 of the US Constitution. However, the courts learned to avoid the responsibility of decision-making by habitually engaging in the allowance of Dismissal Doctrines such as Qualified Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, Mootness, Ripeness, Laches, and Standing.

In the past 15 years, litigators in defense posture have opportunistically overused and abused Standing Doctrine to an extent 20 to 30 times more frequently than the personal jurisdiction hurdle, which was one of the major civil procedure hurdles to get past in the prior two centuries. The abuse of Standing Doctrine violates the most foundational right of American citizens, the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” in the context of a case or controversy.

The Supreme Court’s laissez-faire posture toward controversial issues, one being the attempt of FFF to ensure security of the 2024 election processes, may result in an irreparable schism in the United States.

The relief requested is far from extreme and is the baseline that worked efficiently in the United States for two centuries before electronics entered election tabulation. Returning to the use of paper ballots and hand counting, like France and Canada, is a return to foundational security and election integrity. Network and computer hacking occurs in many industries that deploy much greater network security than do voting machines. Any statement made by politicians or bureaucrats to the effect of electronic voting systems being secure from hacking is either folly or prevarication.

Anticipatory assumptions can be made regarding the Supreme Court’s disposition regarding FFF’s petition for writ. A Respondent’s dismissal motion for lack of standing will likely include some theories of ripeness, lack of injury-in-fact, or especially the inability of the court to redress the grievance. The Petitioners are seeking that “no ‘ineligible’ or ‘unverifiable’ voter will be afforded…” the right to vote.

One might anticipate that the Court could agree with the Respondents that 100% perfect compliance with the requested remedies is impossible to effectuate; ergo, redress is impossible. However, the intent of the Petitioners is that no consequential ineligible voter would be afforded the right to vote. The Court will violate their duty to The People and undermine their primary mission if they opt for allowing a redressability dismissal motion based on the inability to achieve perfect compliance in that absolutely no ineligible voter will vote. This is but one example of how the Court might try to avoid hearing the petition.

If the Supreme Court wishes to avoid hearing FFF’s petition, they will have to allow some type of Dismissal Doctrine, which will be violative of the most foundational right in the US Constitution.

Remember the simple and primary mission of the courts — to hear cases and controversies. If the Supreme Court continues to avoid controversial issues, then the Republic cannot be held together. The legislative and executive branches will have unlimited power over The People if The People cannot bring cases against those branches because judges allow Standing Doctrine as an excuse to avoid hearing a case involving controversial subject matter. Tyranny will ensue, followed by resultant incivility. If one cannot get justice in the courts, then he will either forego justice or he will seek it elsewhere.

Beaudoin’s Amicus Curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in September 2024 explains the macro- and microeconomic results of Standing Doctrine and explains the behaviors of judges and attorneys that result from the seminal cases involved. A forthcoming series of articles by this author, John Beaudoin, Sr., explaining Standing Doctrine and other Dismissal Doctrines will elucidate the importance of repairing or abolishing Standing Doctrine in the United States court systems. Rational Basis and Strict Scrutiny doctrines will also be explored as another vector of courts’ doctrines to violate the rights of citizens.