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(Reuters) – A federal judge on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit critical to President Donald Trump’s risky attempt to reverse his Nov. 3 electoral loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, calling his legal claim a “Frankenstein monster.”
The Trump campaign had sought to prevent state officials from certifying election results in the state.
Federal District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, described the case as “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative allegations.”
Brann, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, said he “has no authority to take away the right to vote from a single person, much less millions of citizens.”
Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in a statement that he was disappointed with the ruling. “Today’s decision turns out to help us in our strategy to quickly get to the US Supreme Court,” he said.
The campaign will ask the United States 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.
The lawsuit against 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 claim, like Frankenstein’s monster, has been stitched together at random,” Brann wrote.
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 electoral 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 Brann to allow Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature to name voters who would back Trump in the Electoral College vote on Dec. 14.
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.
(Information from Jan Wolfe; additional information from Raphael Satter and Aram Roston; edited by Daniel Wallis, Dan Grebler and Noeleen Walder)
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