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(Reuters) – President Donald Trump will take his faltering efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory to a court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, where another legal setback would likely ruin his already distant prospects.
US District Judge Matthew Brann, who sits in Williamsport, will hear arguments in a lawsuit the Trump campaign filed on Nov.9 that seeks to prevent the state’s top election official from certifying Biden, a Democrat, as the winner.
The campaign and Trump supporters have filed a series of lawsuits in various states challenging the Nov.3 election, but have yet to overturn any votes. Pennsylvania has been an integral part of those efforts, and any hope of reversing the election depends on the outcome in the state.
The Trump campaign, after narrowing the scope of the case, focuses on a claim that voters were improperly allowed to fix rejected ballots due to technical errors such as the lack of a “secret envelope.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar will certify the election results on Nov. 23, which means Brann is expected to rule quickly.
On Monday, three lawyers representing the Trump campaign asked to withdraw from the case, saying the campaign had consented but offering few explanations. Brann allowed two out of three to drop the case.
A new attorney hired on Monday, Marc Scaringi, asked Brann to postpone the hearing in order to prepare, but the judge denied the request.
Biden secured the election with his victory in Pennsylvania, placing him above the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Edison Research said Friday that Biden had won 306 votes in the electoral college to 232 for Republican Trump.
In the Pennsylvania case, the Trump campaign alleges that Democratic-leaning counties illegally identified mail-in ballots before Election Day that had flaws so voters could fix or “cure” them.
Pennsylvania officials have asked a judge to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit, saying that all counties in the state were allowed to tell residents if their mailed ballots were deficient, even if they weren’t required to do so.
Pennsylvania officials have also said the dispute affects only a small number of ballots in the state, where Democrat Joe Biden is expected to win by more than 60,000 votes.
Legal experts say the lawsuits have little chance of changing the outcome of the elections. A senior counsel for Biden has dismissed the litigation as “theater, not really lawsuits.”
(Jan Wolfe report; Lincoln Feast edition.)
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