Federal court rejects challenge on Pennsylvania
A cutout of US President Donald Trump is pictured as supporters take part in a protest against the results of the 2020 presidential election in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday.
A US federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit critical to President Donald Trump’s long-shot bid to overturn his November 3 election loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, calling his legal claim a “Frankenstein’s Monster.”
The Trump campaign had sought to prevent state officials from certifying the results of the election in the state.
US District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, described the case as “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations.”
Brann said that he “has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens.”
The lawsuit before Brann was filed on November 9 and had alleged inconsistent treatment by county election officials of mail-in ballots.
Some counties notified voters that they could fix minor defects such as missing “secrecy envelopes” while others did not.
“This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together,” wrote Brann.
Brann, nominated by former President Barack Obama, is a Republican and, according to his biography, a member of the Federalist Society, a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers, law students and scholars.
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he will appeal. “Today’s decision turns out to help us in our strategy to get expeditiously to the US Supreme Court.”
The campaign will ask the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to review the ruling on an accelerated timetable. A majority of that circuit’s judges were nominated by Republican presidents. Four were nominated by Trump.
For Trump to have any hope of overturning the election, he needs to reverse the outcome in Pennsylvania, which is scheduled to be certified by state officials on Monday.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law, and for the voters of Pennsylvania, whom the Trump campaign sought to disenfranchise on the flimsiest legal theory imaginable,” wrote election law scholar Rick Hasen on Twitter.
The Trump campaign has filed dozens of lawsuits in six closely contested states.
But its only victories extended the Election Day voting hours at a handful of polling places in Nevada and set aside some provisional ballots in Pennsylvania.
Attempts to thwart the certification of the election have failed in courts in Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.
In the Pennsylvania case, Brann also denied a campaign request to amend the suit to claim violations of the US Constitution. The campaign wanted Brann to allow Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature to appoint electors who would back for Trump at the Electoral College vote on December 14.
Under Pennsylvania law, the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all the state’s electoral votes.
Biden’s Georgia win contested
US President Donald Trump’s campaign requested a recount of votes in the Georgia presidential race on Saturday, a day after state officials certified results showing Democrat Joe Biden won the state, as Trump’s legal team presses forward with attacks alleging widespread fraud without proof.
Georgia’s results showed Biden beating Trump by 0.25 percent. State law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5 percent.
State’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp formalized the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors.
The Trump campaign asked the secretary of state for a recount in an election dogged by unfounded accusations of fraud.
