Yeah, there is a sense in which dismissal for “failure to state a claim” (which is very common for the Trump cases, often alongside other grounds like laches and/or lack of standing) is “procedural”, but it definitely and unequivocally amounts to a finding on the merits, since it is literally “does the plaintiff allege the actual elements of an offense, with specific alleged factual bases, and profer evidence which would suffice, if not countered, to prove each”. If you lose on that, it is exactly the court say that “ignoring everything else, if you went to trial, presented everything you say you have, and the defendant’s legal team slept through your whole presentation and then decided not to present a case of their own, you would still lose”.

There was a bit of a catch-22 in many of these. There was statistical and/or witness evidence that looking more closely at dominion machines and/or ballots was warranted. However, the only way to actually be allowed to look was during discovery ... which required a suit to actually be heard rather than dismissed. So you don't get to go looking for evidence because you are told you don't have any evidence.

I remember this county being an early catch that angered many on the right, where people actually made an effort to recount. I wonder how many here are aware of it? https://www.westernjournal.com/michigan-recount-confirms-tru...

We are told by the "fact check" websites that we may (and must) disregard the conclusions [2] that Navid Keshavarz-Nia [1] swore an affidavit to, because there is no proof. But how can we get such proof without the cases actually being heard? Left leaning people in general, and HN posters in particular have a disdain for those who make up the non-urban, non-coastal heart of the USA. But wouldn't it have been better to allow these cases to come to trial, so that the nation could actually determine the facts and begin to heal?

[1] https://www.wnd.com/2020/11/4873267/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20201202043332/https://www.court...

Stating that you expect to find something specific during discovery is sufficient for the purpose of stating a claim. The issue for most of the cases is that the Trump campaign lawyers were very careful not to include in their claims that they believed that fraud had occurred, because they did not actually believe this, and lying in a court filing is a serious crime. Asking for a trial so that you can avail yourself of discovery but not actually claiming any illegal things you expect discovery to uncover is commonly referred to as a "fishing expedition", and is never permitted.

> There was a bit of a catch-22 in many of these

Please cite a specific case which made claims that were not properly adjudicated on the basis of this supposed “catch-22”.

And what was the statistical evidence?