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(Reuters) – The campaign of US President Donald Trump and his allies have suffered a series of judicial defeats in their bid to prevent states from certifying President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the November 3 presidential election.
On Saturday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania said that Trump’s challenge to mail-in ballots in the state had been “stitched randomly” as “Frankenstein’s monster.”
Several Trump campaign lawsuits have been dismissed, and legal experts said the remaining cases do not give Trump, a Republican, a viable path to overturn the election results.
Below is a list of litigation that could unfold in the coming days.
THE JUDGE LAUNCHES THE GAME TO BLOCK BIDEN’S WIN IN PENNSYLVANIA
The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit on November 9 to prevent Biden, a Democrat, from being certified by election officials as the winner in Pennsylvania.
The lawsuit said Republican observers were denied access to the mail ballot count, a dispute by elections officials and the alleged inconsistent treatment of mail ballots by county officials.
US District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, dismissed the case on Saturday. The judge criticized Trump for presenting “tense legal arguments” and “speculative accusations.”
Brann said he “does not have the authority to take the right to vote from a single person, much less millions of citizens.”
The judge also refused to allow the campaign to amend its complaint to add claims that they had initially included but later dropped.
The campaign wanted Brann to allow Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature to name voters who would back Trump in the Dec. 14 Electoral College vote.
Sunday’s campaign appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, focusing on a narrow argument that Brann should have allowed them to add the claims they withdrew.
Pennsylvania counties are expected to certify their results Monday, leaving little time for an appeal.
MICHIGAN CASE LEFT AND REQUEST FOR SANCTIONS
On November 11, the campaign filed a lawsuit to prevent Michigan officials from certifying Biden’s victory there.
The Trump campaign said in a court filing Thursday that it was voluntarily withdrawing the lawsuit because Wayne County elections officials “met and refused to certify the results of the presidential election.”
In fact, Republican members of the Wayne County Canvassing Board initially refused to certify the results, but then backed off after a public outcry.
Attorneys for the Detroit city government, which is located in Wayne County, said Thursday the campaign included “impertinent and false language” in the filing and asked a federal judge to remove the disputed document from the police file. case as a penalty.
The federal judge in Detroit hearing the case has yet to rule on the penalty request.
Mark “Thor” Hearne, the Trump campaign attorney who filed the document, told Reuters the request for sanctions was frivolous and an attempt to score political points.
Trump’s legal adviser Jenna Ellis said in a tweet Saturday that the campaign could “re-present” the Michigan case if necessary.
The lawsuit alleges misconduct, such as harassment of Republican contenders in elections and a requirement that they adhere to six-foot distancing rules unlike Democratic contenders.
Michigan counties have certified the election results and the state will meet to certify them on Monday.
OTHER LITIGATION PENDING IN PENNSYLVANIA
US Congressman Mike Kelly, a Trump ally, and other Pennsylvania Republicans filed a lawsuit on Saturday aiming to cast 2.6 million mail-in ballots, claiming the state law allowing them is unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs alleged that the universal no-excuse voting-by-mail program approved by the Republican majority of the state legislature in 2019 violated the state constitution.
In separate litigation, the Trump campaign on Nov. 4 sought to intervene in a pending case before the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging a rule that allows state election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked on the day of. elections, even if they were delivered up to three days later.
Pennsylvania election officials have said there were about 10,000 late-arriving ballots that were separated.
Biden is winning Pennsylvania by over 80,000 votes,
The magistrates had previously ruled that there was insufficient time to decide the merits of the case before Election Day, but indicated they could re-examine it later.
Judge Samuel Alito, along with Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said at the time there was a “high probability” that the Pennsylvania court ruling violated the US Constitution.
NEVADA ELECTORAL CHALLENGE
A list of potential Trump voters filed a lawsuit on Nov.17 against Biden’s voters, alleging a wide variety of problems with the vote. Under state law, Biden, the winner of the popular vote, receives all six of Nevada’s electoral votes.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump “will be declared the winner of the elections in Nevada” or, alternatively, that the results in the state are nullified and no winner is certified there.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Edited by Noeleen Walder, Jonathan Oatis, and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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