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US District Court Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Trump campaign efforts to prevent Pennsylvania officials from certifying Democrat Joe Biden as the winner in the state “were not supported by evidence.”
“This Court has been presented with tense legal arguments without merit and speculative charges,” Brann wrote.
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, much less of all voters in its sixth most populous state,” he wrote.
The lawsuit sought to prevent officials from certifying Biden’s victory in the state, arguing that some counties mistakenly allowed voters to correct errors on their mail-in ballots.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said Trump had “exhausted all plausible legal options” to challenge the outcome in Pennsylvania. He asked Trump to grant the election and congratulated Biden on his victory.
Few other Republicans in Congress have asked Trump to back down.
Trump’s lawyers said they would appeal the ruling, hoping to get to the US Supreme Court quickly.
“We are disappointed that we did not have at least the opportunity to present our evidence at a hearing. Unfortunately, the censorship continues,” Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis said in a statement.
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.
Democrats said Saturday’s scathing verdict was further proof that Trump’s fraud allegations are unfounded.
“Our country will not tolerate Trump’s attempt to reverse the results of an election he decisively lost,” Biden’s spokesman Michael Gwin said in a statement.
Giuliani, who made his first court appearance in 30 years for a hearing in the case on Tuesday, has put forward a variety of conspiracy theories when Trump’s team alleged the election was marred by widespread voter fraud.
Trump did not directly address the ruling, as he again airing family grievances on Twitter. “Fake Votes, Dead People Voting, No Republican Poll Watchers and More!” he wrote.
Election officials across the country say there was no widespread fraud, and the Trump administration itself has called the election “the safest in American history.”
The Trump campaign and its allies have filed dozens of lawsuits across the country challenging the results.
So far they have had little success and time to build a case is running out as some states have started to formalize the results. In Pennsylvania, counties are required to submit official results Monday to the secretary of state, who will then certify the counts. Biden leads Trump by more than 81,000 votes in the state.
Benjamin Geffen of the Public Interest Law Center, which was involved in the case, said Saturday’s ruling showed Trump will not be able to overturn Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania in court.
“When it comes to litigation, I think this is the end of the line for them,” he said.
UNPRECEDENTED EFFORT
Trump seeks to invalidate or change the election results through recount and direct pressure on lawmakers in various states. It would have to prevail in at least three states to prevent Biden from being sworn in as president on Jan.20, an unprecedented move.
In Michigan, Republicans wrote to state officials Saturday asking them to wait 14 days to certify Biden’s victory and allow a ballot audit in Wayne County, which includes the black-majority city of Detroit. The letter cited allegations of “wrongdoing” that have not been substantiated. Biden won 154,000 more votes than Trump in Michigan.
That effort faces great obstacles. A spokesman for Michigan’s highest electoral authority said state law does not allow audits before the vote is certified, which will take place on Monday. The widespread fraud allegations have been found to be unfounded, the spokesman said.
Two top Michigan Republican lawmakers who came to Washington at Trump’s urging said after meeting with him on Friday that they had no information that would change the outcome of the state’s election.
In Wisconsin, an official said poorly trained Trump campaign watchers were slowing down a partial recount by challenging each ballot and raising other objections.
“The watchers are disruptive. They’re asking question after question, telling tabulators to stop, stop what they’re doing and that’s out of line, that’s not acceptable,” Milwaukee County Clerk told reporters, George Christianson.
A manual recount and audit in Georgia confirmed Biden on Friday as the winner in the southern state, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in nearly three decades.
The Trump campaign has two business days to request a recount in Georgia. Trump’s legal team has also said it plans a lawsuit in the state, but has not provided details.
Trump’s accusations have continued to ignite his hard-core Republican base.
Hundreds of supporters rallied Saturday at the Atlanta state house, with video posted online showing speakers denouncing the media for calling Biden the winner of the election, as well as state Republican leaders for certifying. the results.
Policemen in riot gear were deployed to separate them from counter-protesters who gathered nearby.
Critics say Trump’s refusal to budge has serious implications for national security and the fight against the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 255,000 Americans.
Biden, who has denounced Trump’s attempt to reverse the election results as “totally irresponsible,” spent Saturday meeting with transition advisers and attending church.
Trump participated in a virtual summit of the 20 largest economies in the world and then went golfing at his club in Sterling, Virginia.
