“DOJ Seeks Appeals Court Intervention In California Ballot Lawsuit”

Good evening, I'm Professor Reid, and this is ReFrame. Tonight... ZeroHedge reports: DOJ Seeks Appeals Court Intervention In California Ballot Lawsuit. ZeroHedge reported this on October 24. The headline: DOJ Seeks Appeals Court Intervention In California Ballot Lawsuit. District Judge David Carter failed to rule on its emergency application for injunctive relief by noon Thursday, the deadline set by the department.</p> <p><strong>The department said the judge's silence a Let's grade the headline. We ask four questions of every argument. Is it valid? If the reasons are true... must the conclusion be true? Is it cogent? Are the reasons believable... and do they make it likely? Is it supported? Does the article actually show the evidence? And is it fallacy-free? Does it avoid reasoning tricks... like attacking the person? Argument one. It comes from U.S. Department of Justice. The reasons. Reason one. The DOJ sought emergency injunctive relief and treated noon Thursday as the deadline for a ruling. Reason two. U.S. District Judge David Carter had not ruled by that deadline. Reason three. In a case the department calls critical and exigent, failure to rule by that deadline is a constructive denial of the application. Therefore... The Ninth Circuit should treat the emergency application as denied and intervene. Let's put argument one on the board. P stands for its reasons, all together. C is the conclusion. Here's every combination of true and false. Row two. The reasons are true... but the conclusion is false. Nothing in the reasons rules that out. That's a counterexample. One is enough. The argument is invalid. Is it valid? No. The reasons could all be true and the conclusion still false. Is it cogent? No. The reasons don't make the conclusion likely. Is it supported? Partly. Some of it is shown. Some is only asserted. Any fallacies? None found. That's a C. Why C? The silence is a reported fact; the 'constructive denial' is a label in search of a rule. Nothing in the text shows that a plaintiff's self-imposed noon converts judicial inaction into an appealable order. Urgency explains the hurry. It does not prove a denial already exists. Argument two. It comes from U.S. Department of Justice (Oct. 21 emergency filing), with pressure from Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. The reasons. Reason one. The federal government identified more than 20,000 registered voters as likely noncitizens. Reason two. State and county officials say they lack the mechanisms and authority to keep noncitizens from voting and are processing ballots that cannot later be segregated. Reason three. Once those ballots are mixed into the count, any ineligible votes cannot be traced and removed. Therefore... The court must immediately require those ballots to be set aside, or lawful citizen votes are being diluted in real time. Is it valid? No. The reasons could all be true and the conclusion still false. Is it cogent? No. The reasons don't make the conclusion likely. Is it supported? Partly. Some of it is shown. Some is only asserted. Any fallacies? Yes. One: equivocation. That's a D-plus. The fallacy in argument two... equivocation. Here's the line. Quote... Every minute of processing that occurs without segregating the ballots of suspected non-eligible voters causes untraceable disenfranchisement and dilution of the votes of United States citizens. What is equivocation? Letting one word quietly change its meaning partway through an argument. Why does it fail here? The sentence starts with suspicion and ends with accomplished disenfranchisement. 'Suspected' and 'likely' are not 'ineligible,' and dilution follows only if ineligibility is already shown — the fact Los Angeles County says was never evidenced. Why D plus? Put plainly, and kindly: the conclusion reaches further than the reasons can carry; only some of it is shown, and equivocation stands in for the missing steps. A more modest claim would earn a better grade. The text never shows the list is right — no sources, no methodology — and the Department's own verbs stay hedged. McCotter's 'aiders and abettors' warning raises the temperature; it does not fill the hole. A conditional emergency is not an emergency until the condition is proved. Argument three. It comes from Los Angeles County. The reasons. Reason one. The DOJ has not provided evidence, sources, or methodology showing the identified people are ineligible to vote. Reason two. Election officials may not withhold or refuse to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations, and must follow the legal rules governing the election. Reason three. The county has no authority to act on federal records outside its jurisdiction or to adjudicate immigration status. Therefore... Los Angeles County cannot comply with the demand to withhold or set aside those ballots. Argument three was graded valid. On the board, it has this shape. P... and if P, then C. Here's every combination of true and false. Look at every row where both premises are true. C is true every time. No counterexample. That's what valid means. But valid isn't the same as true. Whether the reasons are true... is what cogent and supported measure. Is it valid? Yes. If the reasons are true, the conclusion must be true. Is it cogent? Yes. The reasons are believable and make the conclusion likely. Is it supported? Partly. Some of it is shown. Some is only asserted. Any fallacies? None found. That's a B-plus. Why B plus? Best-built argument on the page. From 'unverified allegation' plus the ordinary rule against suppressing ballots on a say-so, the refusal follows, and the article's own hedges — 'suspected,' 'likely,' no methodology — make that premise plausible. Not an A: the statutes are asserted, not quoted, and the separate standing claim that the complaint 'identifies none' is the county's word about a document we are not shown. Now, the whole scorecard. Valid: 33 percent. Cogent: 33 percent. Conclusion supported: 50 percent. Fallacy-free: 80 percent. One fallacy... twenty points each. Overall... a B-minus. In one line: A lawyer's noon is not a denial, and 'suspected' is not 'ineligible.' Three arguments. One valid. One cogent. None fully supported. One fallacy. Don't just read the news. ReFrame it.