POLITIFACT's Latest False Fact Check, Misinformation on Election Laws

In POLITIFACT's latest "fact check", an article titled "Steve Scalise’s flawed argument that states didn’t follow their own election laws"goes far beyond their usual mis-step.

They assert that "Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., for months has said that states didn’t follow the election laws passed by their own legislatures.", which is the premise for the entire Trump "rigged election" claim as we have mentioned many times on this platform. Further they report that

That’s what Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., repeated in an Oct. 10 interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, wouldn’t say whether he thought the election was stolen. But he rehashed a talking point he has used for months to question the validity of the result: accusing state officials of doing an end run around election laws passed by their own legislatures.

Which is a rare reporting on the alleged "talking point", for example, CNN has not once mentioned non-legislative rulings and the only place this can even be located on their website archive is a PDF transcript of Trump's Jan. 6th speech. However, the PDF encoding prevent search engines from finding this.

They also state that "Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many state officials issued orders or announcements to change election procedures, such as making it easier to cast a ballot by mail." of which it is the "ballot by mail" that has been the primary complaint since before the 2020 election. Notably, this happened in both Democrat and Republican run states, which PF accurately notes.

They were doing well until they report "Courts turned away legal challenges seeking to void election results over such changes." which is a false statement in itself, but they expand on this in great detail, and with great distance from the actual facts.

PF starts explaining that "Scalise’s claim draws on a legal doctrine based on a strict reading of Article 2 of the Constitution" which is not only true, but how Justices themselves have interpreted the Constitution.

Then they go on to say the statement ignores the fact that:

courts have shut the door on challenges based on his argument, made in dozens of lawsuits by Donald Trump and his allies seeking to invalidate certified election results. It also ignores that some election officials have powers to set rules without legislative changes, especially during emergencies.

Which first uses the "guilty by association" of Trump to his "allies", but makes several false claims.

"Seeking to invalidate certified election results" is a false statement, most of these cases sought relief in stopping the certification process or initial counting as a temporary injunction while the case could be heard and non-legislative invalidate the election process, not necessarily the election results.
"Shut the door on this argument" is absolutely false. The temporary injunctions were mostly denied, but not the case itself initially.

This often resulted in dismissal as moot after certification or initial counting happened due to the judicial process taking longer than these activities.
This was also a legal strategy taken by attorneys retained by the Democratic Party, who filed interventions which caused the delay.

"Shut the door on this argument" is also absolutely false, since this can be appealed, and was multiple times, since the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rules on Constitutional issues. Whereas no case reached the Supreme Court in time, that does not shut the door on the argument itself, merely the opportunity to effect the election.
This statement also falsely insinuates Trump's lawsuits were a "complete failure" which is false as well, while the collective lawsuits did endure 150 rulings for the defendants, 28 rulings were in fact, for Trump.

Finally. they provide a seemingly "end-all" to the argument stating that the Supreme Court shot-down this argument:

In a one-page ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Paxton’s suit, concluding that Texas had no business challenging the way other states conduct their elections.

However, this is not what the Supreme Court said, they said the petition was denied due to a "lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution", which does not mean they had "no business" challenging other states elections, rather that they failed to demonstrate a "a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections".

Furthermore, Justice Alito said that:

In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.

This resulted in the case not being heard, but not for the reason PF asserts.

PF then goes on to list several cases where non-legislative rulings were indeed struck down by various court in support of Scalise’s argument and contradicting their own previous assertions and then justify their overall opinion by saying none of the decisions were enough to change the election.

However, that s not what Scalise is alleging. He did not claim the court decisions that were made contrary to mail-in voting, or any other law, were enough to change an election. He said that several states did not follow their election laws, which in fact, a true statement as Politifact states themselves.

Adding the argument that these apparent violations were insufficient to change an election does not negate the fact that they occured and also do not address states where cases were not heard at all.

This is a false fact check which makes numerous false claims, some of which are provable by Politifact's own words.

Summary

POLITIFACT claims that Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who was famously shot by left-wing activist James Hodgkinson, is making a false claim by stating that some states did not follow their own election rules, which has been the primary complaint of Donald Trump, however this is not only a false fact check by POLITIFACT, but one they themselves prove as such. They also make several false claims in the process.

Claim: "Steve Scalise’s flawed argument that states didn’t follow their own election laws"

Fact Check Verdict: FALSE FACT CHECK FALSE CLAIMS

Claimant: POLITIFACT