Court hearing in the Trump campaign's effort to stop the certification of the results in Pennsylvania kicking off in a couple of minutes.

This is the Trump campaign's amended complaint: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/147/127057/15517431477.pdf

And Pennsylvania's motion to dismiss: https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/147/127057/15517432170.pdf

The public dial-in line has 3,999 listeners. (Capacity was 4,000, so not sure if that means it's full or if there's literally one spot left.)

Ah of course. It's full up... https://twitter.com/djkocisi2/status/1328772598558322690

Missed the first few minutes due to some technical difficulties, but Rudy Giuliani is beginning to make arguments on behalf of the Trump campaign

Giuliani's opening line: "The best description of what we're alleging ... is a widespread nationwide voter fraud".

He's claiming that Democrats took advantage of the pandemic to introduce fraud via mail-in ballots

Giuliani is taking the judge on a tour of voter fraud in US elections all the way back to Chicago in the 1960s and is now claiming that observers were not allowed to watch the counting of mail-in ballots.

Previously: https://twitter.com/kadhim/status/1324485343274557443

Giuliani is now on to the core equal protection part of the lawsuit that complains about voters in more D counties being given greater opportunity to cure issues with their ballots than in more R counties

"That is exactly Bush v. Gore Exactly."

Giuliani claims that the Trump campaign amended its complaint, striking out large portions of it (which you can see here https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/147/127057/15517431478.pdf -) because "as compared to last week, we have twice as much evidence this week"

Giuliani claims officials in Philadelphia effectively told the state's legislature "we don't about your laws" in instituting pandemic-related rules on vote observers and did a bit imitating those officials saying "Hahaha"

Giuliani says they're contesting 1.5 million votes in Pennsylvania: "These votes are way more than enough to overturn the results of the election."

Giuliani says the Trump campaign has 300 affidavits, declarations "or our own statements that we've written down".

He's also got pictures by the sounds of it that haven't been entered into the docket previously. Giuliani is currently labelling them Exhibit A, B, etc

There were four pictures, two from Philadelphia County and two Allegheny County. But Giuliani said he just got the pictures them today and that he would correct the record if they were in fact not from those counties

Giuliani is done, now we've got Daniel Donovan of Kirkland & Ellis for Pennsylvania

"I intend to do my best to distill the arguments rather than repeat them," says Donovan

Rather hard to hear Donovan but I think he's saying that allowing eligible voters to cure issues with ballots doesn't violate state law never mind federal law

Donovan starting off with the standing defense, arguing that the Trump campaign has no right to bring a lawsuit on the basis that some voters in some counties were able to cure their ballots and that others elsewhere did not

Donovan says case law dismisses the argument that "vote dilution" is the kind of specific injury that would allow someone to seek relief in court, rather it's a "generalised grievance"

Donovan: "Here plaintiffs that some electors were treated unequally, but that’s not a particularised harm to them, it’s a generalised complaint that the Pennsylvania election code was not followed in certain instances."

Donovan says the Trump campaign can't argue that it suffered a specific injury because:

"The ballots that are being counted are for all races on the ballot, federal and state. All candidates in state and federal races were subject to the same rules".

Donovan says that the two voters suing alongside the Trump campaign in the case complain that their votes weren't counted, but they're not suing their own county election boards

Donovan says that, in spite of Giuliani's comments earlier, the actual lawsuit does not allege that the ballots at issue would actually change the result of the election, which he says further undermines the idea that the Trump campaign has suffered a specific injury

Donovan now turning from standing to the Trump campaign's equal protection claim.

Judge Brann interrupts to ask how many cases are currently pending in Pennsylvania state court

(Here's a tracker I did) https://www.ft.com/content/20b114b5-5419-493b-9923-a918a2527931

Aaaand the line just cut out

Line is still out. I'll note that earlier today the judge refused to let a single Associated Press reporter be physically present in the courtroom as a representative for the media:

https://pacer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/147/127057/15517434146.pdf

Feverishly!

Cleaning up and earlier typo: this was "we don't *care* about your laws" https://twitter.com/kadhim/status/1328779725016358912

Update from the courthouse: https://twitter.com/joshgerstein/status/1328790472316301315

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules 5-2 against Trump campaign in Philadelphia election observers case, says city did not violate the law when instituting social distancing rules for vote watchers

Court's Opinion: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20407623/pa-supreme-court-decision-on-election-observers.pdf

Here are the two dissents:

Justice Mundy: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20407627-pa-supreme-court-election-observers-mundy-dissent
Justice Saylor: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20407628-pa-supreme-court-election-observers-saylor-dissent

(I *think* the line is working again. Certainly when I dialled back in again the white noise had, thankfully, ceased.)

Ok we're back. Hearing about to restart

"We had the telephone lines go down for reasons I don’t understand," Judge Brann says

We're back into Daniel Donovan for Pennsylvania replying to the Trump campaign's equal protection arguments

Donovan says that even violations of state law don't provide federal constitutional equal protection claims, and argues that what any one county does to make it easier for people to vote, doesn't make things harder for voters in other counties

Donovan deals with Giuliani's claims about election observers, noting the PA Supreme Court ruling has made that issue "moot" and pointing out that much of those complaints were deleted from the amended lawsuit: "Deleted, deleted, deleted."

We now have Mark Aronchick representing the defendant counties in the Trump campaign lawsuit. Judge is having difficulty hearing him