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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a remote Texas lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump that sought to discard the results of voting in four states, a crushing setback in his quest to undo his electoral defeat to the president – elect Joe Biden.
Judges in a short order said Texas had no legal capacity to present the case against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Along with a Pennsylvania case, it was the second time this week that the conservative majority court rejected the attempt to revoke the will of the voters.
The Texas case was brought Tuesday by the Republican state attorney general, a Trump ally. The Republican president filed a motion Wednesday to intervene and become a plaintiff.
The conservative 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court includes three Trump-appointed justices and none of them commented on the unsigned order. Before the Nov. 3 election, Trump said he expected the Supreme Court to decide his outcome and cited that as a reason for the Republican-controlled Senate to swiftly confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of its appointees, before the elections.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially recognizable interest in the way another state conducts its elections,” the court order said.
Two of the court’s conservatives, Judge Samuel Alito and Judge Clarence Thomas, said they would have allowed Texas to sue, but they would not have stopped the four states from finalizing their election results.
There was no immediate response from the White House or the Trump campaign. A spokesman for Biden said it was “not a surprise” that the high court rejected “unfounded attempts” to deny that Trump lost the election.
“Our nation’s highest court saw this seditious abuse of our electoral process,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on Twitter.
Dana Nessel, Michigan attorney general, also a Democrat, said in a statement that the ruling was “an important reminder that we are a nation of laws, and while some may yield to the will of a single individual, the courts will not.”
NO LEGAL FOUNDATIONS
All four states in a court filing Thursday asked justices to reject the lawsuit, which they said had no factual or legal basis.
The Trump campaign and its allies had already lost numerous lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the election results. Trump has falsely claimed he won and made unsubstantiated allegations of widespread election fraud and a “rigged” system against him.
State election officials have said they have found no evidence of fraud. Attorneys for Trump and his allies have presented no evidence in court of the type of fraud he has alleged.
Texas had asked the judges to return results in all four states. Biden, who will take office on January 20, won all four. Trump had won them in the 2016 election.
“It is regrettable that the Supreme Court has decided not to take this case and determine the constitutionality of the violation of federal and state electoral law in these four states,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans have made unsubstantiated claims that the expansion of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic led Biden to fraudulently win in electoral battle states.
Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of trying to break public belief in the integrity of American elections and sabotaging American democracy by trying to subvert the will of the voters.
Trump’s advisers inside and outside the White House have long resigned themselves to Trump’s defeat despite the president’s quixotic quest to reverse the results. Trump has refused to concede the election and advisers hope he will continue to do so.
The Texas lawsuit argued that changes made by the four states to voting procedures amid the pandemic to expand voting by mail were illegal. Texas asked the Supreme Court to immediately block all four states from using the voting results to name presidential voters to the Electoral College, which is scheduled to formally confirm the winner on Monday.
(Information from Lawrence Hurley; additional information from Steve Holland, Michael Martina, and Simon Lewis; editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)
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