US Elections: Donald Trump Faces A Difficult Path In Getting The Supreme Court To Intervene

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that there is one place where he wants to determine the outcome of the presidential election: the United States Supreme Court. But you may have a hard time getting there.

For the past two days, Trump has leaned to the idea that the high court should get involved in the election as it did in 2000. The court then effectively ruled the contested election of President George W Bush in a 5-4 decision. that divide the liberals and conservatives of the court.

Today, six members of the court are Conservatives, including three nominated by Trump. But the outcome of this year’s election seemed to take a very different shape than in 2000, when Florida’s electoral votes handed the presidency to George W. Bush.

Then Bush led Florida and went to court to stop a recount. Trump, for his part, has suggested a strategy that would focus on multiple states where winning margins appear slim. But he may have to persuade the Supreme Court to reserve votes in two or more states to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president.

Chief Justice John Roberts, for his part, will not want the election to be reduced to himself and his colleagues. Roberts, who was not on the Bush versus Gore court in 2000 but was Bush’s attorney, has often tried to distance the court from political branches of government and politics that he believes could damage the reputation of the court.

It is also unclear what legal issues might prompt judges to intervene. Trump has made repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The lawsuits filed by his campaign so far have been small-scale efforts that probably won’t affect many votes, and some have already been thrown out.

Still, Trump has focused on the high court. In the early hours of the morning after Election Day, he said, “We will go to the Supreme Court of the United States; we want the voting to stop.”

And on Thursday (US time), as Biden approached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, Trump again told Americans: “He’s going to end up, maybe, in court more top of the country. see. “

On Twitter he also urged: “The Supreme Court of the United States should decide!”

Currently, there is an electoral case in the Supreme Court and it is a Republican appeal to exclude ballots that arrived after Election Day in the battlefield state of Pennsylvania. But whether or not those ballots are eventually counted seems unlikely to affect who gets the state’s electoral votes.

Biden has only increased his lead over Trump, and any additional vote by mail would likely help Biden.

Still, the Trump campaign is currently seeking to intervene in the case, an appeal of a decision from Pennsylvania’s highest court to allow an additional three days for the receipt and counting of mailed ballots. Because the case is ongoing, the state’s top election official has ordered that the small number of ballots that arrived in that window, before 5 p.m. Friday (US time), be separated but counted. . On Friday, Republicans asked for a superior court order to ensure that the ballots are separated.

Beyond the Pennsylvania case, if Trump wanted to pursue a lawsuit to challenge the outcome of elections in one state, he would have to start by presenting a case in a lower court.

So far, the Trump campaign and Republicans have raised legal challenges in several states, but most are small-scale lawsuits that don’t seem to affect many votes. The Trump campaign won a ruling to bring party and campaign watchers closer to poll workers who are processing mail-in ballots in Philadelphia, but judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly dismissed two other campaign lawsuits.

Trump and his campaign have promised even more legal action, making unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.

Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign has called the existing lawsuits without merit, more political than legal strategy.

“I want to emphasize that for their purposes these lawsuits do not have to have merit. That is not the purpose … It is to create an opportunity for them to send false messages about what is happening in the electoral process,” said attorney Bob Bauer. he said, accusing the Trump campaign of “continually alleging wrongdoing, system failures and unsubstantiated fraud.”

On the other hand, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, in a call with journalists, said that “every night the president goes to bed with a clue” and every night new votes “are mysteriously found in a sack.”

However, it is common in presidential elections for vote counting to continue after Election Day. And while most states set Election Day as the deadline for receiving ballots by mail, 22 states, 10 of which backed Trump in the 2016 election, have a deadline for the day after the election. .