quote:
Almost all of those legal challenges were resolved on procedural bases, as opposed to some substantive determination of the validity of election results.

This is also not a fair characterization. I will note that AggieHank86 said "validity of the election results" and not "fraud", but that's not what Team Trump was saying. The election lawsuits are very telling about whether the election was "stolen" by "fraud". Most of the lawsuits concerned procedural issues in the first instance--not fraud. These were things like "can we allow mail-in ballots to come in three days after the election?". Such issues can, and should, be brought before the election, so people don't waste time on an election conducted under improper procedures. Trump's campaign chose not to do that, and got dinged on laches in a number of instances. The few cases I know about that alleged actual fraud were either resolved on the merits (in motions to dismiss or in preliminary injunction rulings), or dropped by team Trump before a resolution on the merits was possible (e.g. Trump Campaign v. Benson in Michigan). Furthermore, the evidence of fraud submitted to the courts was mostly paltry, and when it wasn't paltry, it was investigated and subsequently retracted (Yes, I've actually reviewed it).

The lawsuits are, in fact, great evidence from which to draw the inference that the fraud claims were all bullshite all the way down. Not because we had some Matlock-like "a-ha" moment in court, but because of the kinds of suits that were brought, and how they were prosecuted. There is no reason to bring so many lawsuits not alleging fraud when there is hard evidence of fraud. There is no reason to dismiss your own few fraud suits if you have hard evidence of fraud.

Now, back to AggieHank86's statement about the "validity of the election results". This seems to be a great example of the motte and bailey fallacy that occurred among Republicans. We had Trump and Giuliani and loudly proclaiming "fraud", supported by a host of bad-faith meme-makers, etc. on the Internet, while second-tier Republicans were talking about "irregularities" (like not signing having three signatures or something), knowing that the intended audience would conflate "fraud" and "irregularities". The lawsuits were brought mainly on "irregularities", but used to support claims to "fraud". Now that the election is over, the fraud claims are slowly crumbling, and the full-scale retreat to procedural "irregularities" is underway.