WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that there is one place he wants to determine the outcome of the presidential election: the United States Supreme Court. But you may have a hard time getting there.
In the past two days, Trump has leaned toward the idea that the high court should participate in elections as it did in 2000. Then the court effectively ruled the contested election of President George W. Bush in a 5-5 decision. Four. that divided the liberals and conservatives of the court.
Today, six members of the court are Conservatives, including three nominated by Trump. But the outcome of this year’s election seemed to take a very different shape from that of 2000, when Florida’s electoral votes handed the presidency to George W. Bush.
Then Bush led Florida and went to court to stop a recount. Trump, for his part, has suggested a strategy that would focus on multiple states where winning margins appear slim. But he might have to persuade the Supreme Court to sideline votes in two or more states to avoid Joe biden to become president.
Presiding judge John RobertsFor his part, he is unlikely to want the choice to come down to himself and his colleagues. Roberts, who was not in the court of Bush v. Gore in 2000, but a former Bush attorney, has often tried to distance the court from political branches of government and politics that he believes could damage the court’s reputation.
It is also unclear what legal issues might prompt judges to intervene. Trump has made repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The lawsuits filed by his campaign so far have been small-scale efforts that probably won’t affect many votes, and some have already been thrown out.
Still, Trump has focused on the high court. In the early hours of the morning after Election Day, he said: “We will go to the United States Supreme Court – we want all voting to stop. “And on Thursday, as Biden approached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, Trump again told Americans:” It’s going to end, maybe, in the highest court in the country. Earth, we’ll see. “On Twitter he also urged,” The United States Supreme Court should decide! ”
There is currently an electoral case in the Supreme Court and it is a Republican appeal to exclude ballots that arrived after Election Day in Pennsylvania State, Battleground. But whether or not those ballots are eventually counted seems unlikely to affect who gets the state’s electoral votes.
Biden opened a narrow lead over Trump on Friday, and any additional mail ballots would likely help Biden, not the president.
Still, the Trump campaign is trying to intervene in the case, an appeal of a decision from Pennsylvania’s highest court to allow an additional three days for receipt and counting of ballots mailed. Because the case is ongoing, the state’s top election official has ordered that the small number of ballots that reached that window, before 5 p.m. Friday, be separated but counted. On Friday, Republicans asked for a superior court order ensuring the ballots are separated, and Judge Samuel Alito, acting on his own, agreed, saying he was motivated in part by the Republicans’ claim that they cannot be sure election officials are complying with Guia.
Beyond the Pennsylvania case, if Trump wanted to pursue a lawsuit to challenge the outcome of elections in one state, he would have to start by presenting a case in a lower court.
So far, the Trump campaign and Republicans have raised legal challenges in several states, but most are small-scale lawsuits that don’t seem to affect many votes. On Thursday, the Trump campaign won an appeal ruling to bring party and campaign watchers closer to the poll workers who process mail ballots in Philadelphia. But the judges of Georgia and Michigan he quickly dismissed two other campaign lawsuits on Thursday.
Trump and his campaign have promised even more legal action, making unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign has called the existing lawsuits without merit, more political than legal strategy. “I want to emphasize that for their purposes these lawsuits do not have to have merit. That is not the purpose … It is to create an opportunity for them to send false messages about what is happening in the electoral process,” said the lawyer. Bob bauer he said Thursday, accusing the Trump campaign of “continually alleging wrongdoing, system failures and fraud without any foundation.”
On the other hand, Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien, in a call with reporters Thursday morning, said that “every night the president goes to bed with an advantage” and every night new votes “are mysteriously in a coat”.
However, it is common in presidential elections for vote counting to continue after Election Day. And while most states make Election Day the deadline to receive ballots by mail, 22 states, 10 of which backed Trump in the 2016 election, have a deadline after Election Day. elections.
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Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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