Democrats and Republicans braced for a legal showdown on Wednesday to decide the winner of the close presidential race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
After Trump declared that he was ready to go to the United States Supreme Court to dispute the vote count, his campaign announced a recount lawsuit in Wisconsin and lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states critical to winning the presidency.
US networks have called Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden, while Pennsylvania remains a mess.
On Wednesday night, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit on a fourth battlefield, Georgia, as the president’s lead there dropped to less than a percentage point.
Trump’s behavior raised the specter that the election would eventually be decided, as in 2000, by a Supreme Court ruling on how states can count votes.
Demands
The Trump campaign demands attack a unique aspect of the 2020 election: that millions of voters cast ballots by mail because of the coronavirus
pandemic.
the COVID-19 The threat forced states to promote mail-in ballots and change the rules on how they would be collected, verified, and tabulated.
That included extending the periods for receiving ballots, due to an overloaded United States Postal Service, adding time for the counting of votes.
Republicans say some of those changes were decided or implemented incorrectly and in ways that favor Democrats.
In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign said it would join an existing Republican lawsuit over extending the state’s deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.
If successful, they have the potential to disqualify tens of thousands of ballots that arrived after November 3.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled the extension was legal and last week the US Supreme Court refused to get involved.
But the high court left the door open for a post-election challenge.
The Trump campaign also said it was demanding that Pennsylvania’s ballot counting be temporarily halted, claiming Democrats were hiding the process. In Philadelphia, the count was broadcast live.
And they sued for changes in voter identification, made to adapt to the pandemic, saying they violated the electoral code.
In Michigan, the Trump campaign sued to stop the counting of votes saying they were not given “meaningful access.”
Georgia’s lawsuit wants counties to “separate any and all late tickets from all legally cast ballots” that arrived before the 7:00 pm Election Day deadline, said the deputy campaign manager. by Trump, Justin Clark.
Can the courts decide the choice?
In 2000, the White House race between Republican George Bush and Democrat Al Gore was based on one state: Florida.
With Bush leading by just 537 votes and struggling with the state’s punch card ballots, Gore’s campaign sought a statewide recount.
The Bush campaign appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, which ruled effectively blocking the full recount, handing Florida – and the election – to Bush.
Experts say such lawsuits are only practical if they focus on a real problem and the vote gap is narrow.
If the margin that separates the candidates in that state is two or three percentage points, say, a difference of 100,000 votes in Pennsylvania, “it is quite difficult to litigate at the end of the day,” said Derek Muller, professor of law at the University. from Iowa.
However, Muller said, “if it’s a state, then I would expect really serious litigation.”
Scary Supreme Court
If a campaign or candidate files a lawsuit under state regulations, they must first exhaust their options in the state justice system before going to federal court and the United States Supreme Court.
By leveraging the existing ballot extension case, the Trump campaign has increased its chances of reaching superior court.
But the Supreme Court has been cautious about its involvement in voting matters that are decided by the states, and is aware that it risked its position as an independent body by effectively handing the 2000 election to Bush.
One case would bring to the limelight the political leanings of the court’s six conservative and three liberal justices, especially Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court just last month.
Trump said he rushed her appointment in part so she could be there to hear any election cases.
The Supreme Court found they needed to intervene in 2000, “but it’s not necessarily clear that they would feel the same way today,” Muller said.
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