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President Donald Trump’s campaign lost court rulings in the hotly contested states of Georgia and Michigan on Thursday, even as he promised to file a new lawsuit challenging what he called voting irregularities in Nevada.
In the Georgia case, the campaign alleged that 53 late-arriving ballots were mixed with on-time ballots. In Michigan, he had tried to prevent votes from being counted and gain greater access to the tabulation process.
State judges dismissed both lawsuits Thursday.
Georgia Superior Court Judge James Bass said there was “no evidence” that the ballots in question were invalid.
In the Michigan case, Judge Cynthia Stephens said, “I have no basis for finding that there is a substantial probability of success at the bottom.”
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the Michigan and Georgia rulings.
Trump’s allies also alleged that there were voting irregularities in Nevada’s populous Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
Votes are still being counted in all three states, among a handful of battlefield states that could decide the presidency. Democratic challenger Joe Biden has a small lead in Nevada, Trump a small lead in Georgia and Biden is expected to win in Michigan.
At a press conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt and other Trump campaign surrogates, including former administration official Richard Grenell, did not provide evidence to support their allegations of wrongdoing and did not respond. questions from journalists.
“We believe that there are dead voters who have been counted. We are also confident that there are thousands of people whose votes have been counted and who have moved out of Clark County during the pandemic, ”Laxalt said.
He said a lawsuit would be filed in federal court asking the judge to “stop the counting of improper votes.”
Joe Gloria, an elections official in Clark County, told reporters that there was no evidence that incorrect ballots were processed.
‘Disinformation campaign’
Bob Bauer, a senior advisor to Biden’s campaign, called Trump’s various demands a distraction “without merit” and said the strategy was designed to undermine the integrity of the electoral process.
“This is part of a broader disinformation campaign that involves some political theater,” he said.
“They intend to give the Trump campaign a chance to argue that the vote counting should stop. It’s not going to stop, “he told the press on Thursday.
In Pennsylvania, where Trump is narrowly leading but Biden is winning, the Trump campaign and other Republicans have already presented several legal challenges.
An appeals court in Pennsylvania ordered Trump campaign officials to be allowed to take a closer look at ballot processing in Philadelphia, prompting a brief delay in the count.
Later, a judge helped negotiate a deal so that a fixed number of observers from each campaign, up to 60, could be admitted to parts of the city’s counting area within the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Pennsylvania Democrats filed documents in the US Supreme Court Thursday saying that while they would not oppose Trump’s campaign to intervene in a pending appeal in which Republicans seek to block incoming mail ballots late in state, it was premature for the court to act on the motion.
Trump has repeatedly said that he hopes the Supreme Court, which has a conservative 6-3 majority, including three justices it appointed, will play a key role in determining the outcome.
“We think there will be a lot of litigation,” Trump told reporters Thursday, adding that “maybe it will end up in the highest court in the country.”
But the Supreme Court is unlikely to have the final say in a decisive way and any challenge would have to go through the usual judicial process, legal experts say. – Reuters
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