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Sunday 22 November 2020
Donald Trump’s attempts to change the outcome of the election through legal channels have not been crowned with success. Now a federal court in Pennsylvania rejects it. And in Michigan, even his friends from the Republican Party put him in his place.
A federal court in the US state of Pennsylvania has given current US President Donald Trump another defeat in his fight against the election results. Trump’s attorneys had only presented “worthless proven legal arguments and speculative claims” without evidence, Judge Matthew Brann wrote in a statement released Saturday night (local time) for his decision. Trump and his Republican allies have also suffered defeats in other lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Trump wanted to obtain a court order in Pennsylvania to prevent the state from certifying the election results. His lawsuit was also aimed at potentially invalidating millions of votes by mail. The arguments and evidence presented would not even have been sufficient to invalidate the vote of “a single voter,” the judge wrote. “Our people, our laws and institutions demand more,” he wrote.
So all 20 Pennsylvania voters stick with Joe Biden. According to US media forecasts, the Democrat now has 306 voters, significantly more than the majority of 270 votes needed to win. However, Trump refuses to admit defeat, claiming that massive electoral fraud occurred in the November 3 election. However, it has not provided strong evidence of this. For this reason, the judges have already dismissed several of their claims.
In the state of Georgia, Judge Steven Grimberg denied a conservative attorney’s demand on Friday night (local time) to stop the certification of the election result. The Georgia court also dismissed a plaintiff’s attack on mail ballots. Granting the court order requested by the plaintiff “would create confusion, undermine public confidence in the elections, and potentially drive more than one million voters out of Georgia,” he said.
Biden’s narrow election victory in Georgia has now been officially confirmed. Responsible Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp certified the results Friday afternoon. Biden won the votes of the 16 electors in the state with a minimum majority of 12,670 votes. Due to the adjusted result, the state had started a count. As a result, Biden’s lead had shrunk, before he led with around 14,000 votes. Trump has until Tuesday to request another recount.
Michigan Republicans reject Trump’s plans
Trump also had bad luck with another strategy: Republican deputies and senators from the state of Michigan invited by him to the White House spoke out against attempts to alter the election results with legal tricks after the meeting. Republicans said Friday they did not yet have information that could change the outcome of the election. Therefore, “they would follow the law and normal process” in naming the electorate, said Senate and House Majority Leaders Mike Shirkey and Lee Chatfield. “And the candidates who get the most votes win the elections and the electorate’s votes,” they said.
Biden won the Michigan election by a clear margin. The unusual meeting with Republicans that Trump had scheduled had fueled fears that he would pressure them to change the outcome of the normally more formal notarization steps. However, the US media cited lawyers who emphasized that such a move would never have stood in court, even with the consent of local Republicans. Biden will be sworn in as the new president on January 20.
