The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said it is trying to provide more electronic access to court proceedings, including by advising courts they may want to pause proceedings if they have technical difficulties with providing online access to those proceedings.

That came in a response from office director James Duff to a letter to news outlets and Fix the Court, which had sought a definitive answer from the office on whether and how it plans to provide access to election-related legal challenges in district and federal appeals courts.

The request came last week when there were more Trump-backed lawsuits still extant.

In his response dated Nov. 16, Duff pointed out that in March, due to COVID-19, the Judicial Conference had approved the use of teleconference technology to provide the public and media outlets with live audio of civil proceedings, and provide guidance on how to implement that temporary exception to the general prohibition on the use of that technology, including "how to establish high-volume audio connectivity in an effort to maximize remote public access to the anticipated increase in election-related proceedings."

The letter from Fix the Court and others stemmed from technical issues with access to the Texas court decision Nov. 2 rejecting a Trump campaign attempt to invalidate drive-in-dropbox ballots. The phone line set up to provide access to that hearing malfunctioned and dropped everyone, said the outlets in a letter to Duff Tuesday (Nov. 3), after which only some outlets were allowed to get back on, and even then the audio quality was so bad, compounded by the fact that the reporters' lines were not muted, that it made it "almost impossible to understand."

To that point, Duff said: "If technical difficulties arise during a proceeding that significantly interfere with public access, courts have been advised that they may wish to consider pausing the proceeding until access can be restored."

But the office has also been working to obviate the need for such delays.

Duff said it has been working with courts to identify future potential technical difficulties, expanding its outreach along those lines including by asking courts to notify the office before high-demand proceedings and discuss options and assistance.

As to streaming court proceedings, he pointed out that many federal appeals courts currently provide audio, but that "judiciary policy prohibits audio streaming broadcasting of district court proceedings."

He did note that the conference has approved a pilot program to test livestreamed audio of civil proceedings in district courts, but that won't begin until next year.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai is celebrating a federal appeals court's decision Tuesday (June 23) not to stay the FCC's planned C-Band auction order. 

The court said the appellants had not "satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal." Those include irreparable harm and likelihood of victory.

Related: Divided FCC Votes to Proceed with C-Band Auction

The FCC is freeing up 280 MHz of that midband spectrum for 5G, paying larger satellite companies to exit early and the moving expenses of cable and broadcast clients of those satellite companies. 

"Today’s ruling is great news for American consumers and U.S. leadership in 5G," said Pai. "I am very pleased that the D.C. Circuit rejected this attempt by small satellite operators with no U.S. operations in the C-band to delay our efforts to repurpose critical mid-band spectrum."

Related: FCC C-Band Auction Still a 'Go' For December

The FCC two weeks ago denied a petition to delay the start of the auction by the same handful of international satellite companies licensed to use the band who had sought the stay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  

The court followed suit.

The FCC anticipated there would be legal challenges to its decision to reclaim 300 of the 500 MHz satellite spectrum for terrestrial wireless, moving satellite incumbents, and their broadcast and cable clients, into the remaining 200 MHz.  

The companies (ABS Global Ltd., Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales S.A., and Hispamar Satélites S.A., and Hispasat S.A) argue that beginning with the May 29 election by space station operators to relocate on an expedited basis in exchange for payments, a chain of events was starting that would harm them by "benefiting competing space station operators that are eligible for relocation and accelerated relocation payments and depriving them of spectrum access rights without compensation." They also argued the FCC did not have the authority to modify their spectrum access rights, gave out too much money in accelerated payments--that they didn't get--and arbitrarily excluded them from getting those payments.

The court will still hear that challenge on its merits, and has asked the parties to submit a briefing schedule by June 29. But it will not stay the decision pending the outcome of that appeal.

 "The FCC will continue to defend our order on the merits, and I look forward to our C-band auction beginning on December 8," said Pai.