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A United States federal judge in Pennsylvania has dismissed a lawsuit pivotal in President Donald Trump’s attempt to reverse his Nov. 3 electoral loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
The Trump campaign had sought to prevent state officials from certifying election results in the state, but on Saturday the judge called the legal claim a “Frankenstein monster.”
US District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, described the case as “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative allegations.”
Mr. Brann said he “has no authority to take the right to vote from even one person, let alone millions of citizens.”
The lawsuit against Mr. Brann was filed on November 9 and alleged that county elections officials had inconsistently treated mail-in ballots. Some counties notified voters that they could correct minor defects, such as missing “secret envelopes,” while others could not.
“This statement, like Frankenstein’s monster, has been stitched together at random,” Brann wrote.
The judge, 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 academics.
Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in a statement that he was disappointed with the ruling and will appeal. “Today’s decision turns out to help us in our strategy to get to the US Supreme Court quickly,” he said.
The campaign will ask the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia to review the ruling on an expedited schedule, according to Giuliani. Most of the judges on that circuit 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 Pennsylvania voters, whom the Trump campaign sought to disenfranchise the flimsiest legal theory imaginable,” wrote election law scholar Rick Hasen on Twitter. .
The Trump campaign and its supporters have filed dozens of lawsuits in six hotly contested states. The only victories of the campaign extended voting hours on Election Day at a handful of polling places in Nevada and sidelined some provisional ballots in Pennsylvania, according to court records.
Attempts to thwart election certification have failed in the courts of Georgia, Michigan and Arizona.
In the Pennsylvania case, Brann also denied a campaign request to amend the lawsuit and allege violations of the United States constitution. The campaign wanted it to allow Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature to name voters who would back Trump in the December 14 electoral college vote.
Under Pennsylvania law, the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all the electoral votes in the state.
A presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election, and Biden leads the electoral vote tally by 306-232.
Electoral votes are distributed among the 50 states and the District of Columbia based roughly on population. – Reuters
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