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United States President Donald Trump’s campaign filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, laying the groundwork to contest battle states as he slipped behind Democrat Joe Biden in pursuit of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. the White House.
The new filings, adding to existing Republican legal challenges in Pennsylvania and Nevada, call for better access for campaign watchers to where ballots are processed and counted, and concerns about missing ballots, the campaign said. . However, at one Michigan location in question, The Associated Press observed election watchers from both sides monitoring Wednesday (local time).
Evan Vucci / AP
President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington.
The AP called Michigan for Democrat Joe Biden on Wednesday. Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia are undecided.
The campaign also seeks to intervene in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court case over whether ballots received up to three days after the election can be counted, said deputy campaign manager Justin Clark.
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The actions reveal an emerging legal strategy that the president had signaled for weeks, namely that it would attack the integrity of the voting process in states where the result could spell defeat.
His campaign also announced that it would ask for a recount in Wisconsin, a state that the AP called Biden on Wednesday afternoon. Campaign manager Bill Stepien cited “irregularities in multiple Wisconsin counties,” without providing details.
Biden said the count should continue in every state, adding: “No one is going to take away our democracy, not now, not ever.”
Campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said the legal challenges were not the behavior of a winning campaign.
Greg Wohlford / AP
Marian Collin Franco, 20, helps collect provisional ballots at the Erie County Courthouse on Election Day in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“What makes these charades especially pathetic is that while Trump is demanding recounts in places where he has already lost, he is simultaneously involved in unsuccessful attempts to stop the counting of votes in other states where he is on his way to the ballot. defeat, “Bates said in a statement.
Election officials continued to count votes across the country, the normal process the day after the vote. Unlike in previous years, states were grappling with a flood of mail-in ballots fueled by fear of voting in person during a pandemic. At least 103 million people voted early, either by mail or in person, representing 74% of the total votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.
Each election, the results reported on election night are unofficial and the ballot count extends beyond Election Day. Ballots by mail usually take longer to verify and count. This year, due to the large number of mail-in ballots and a close race, results were expected to take longer.
The Trump campaign said it is calling for a temporary halt to the count in Michigan and Pennsylvania until it is given “meaningful” access in numerous places and allowed to review ballots that have already been opened and processed.
The AP’s call to Michigan for Biden came after the lawsuit was filed. The president has the upper hand in Pennsylvania, but his margin is shrinking as more mailed ballots are counted.
There have been no reports of ballot fraud or any type of concern outside of Pennsylvania. The state had 3.1 million mail-in ballots that take time to count and an order allows them to be received and counted through Friday if they are postmarked Nov. 3.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in an interview with CNN that the lawsuit was “more of a political document than a legal document.”
“There is transparency in this process. The count has continued. There are observers watching this count, and the count will continue, ” he said.
Michigan’s lawsuit claims Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was allowing absentee ballots to be counted without teams of bipartisan observers and opponents. She is accused of undermining the “constitutional right of all Michigan voters … to participate in fair and legal elections.” Michigan Democrats said the lawsuit was unlikely.
Carlos Osorio / AP
A Detroit police officer prevents election hopefuls from entering the central tally board due to overcrowding, in Detroit, Michigan.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said all valid ballots have been counted and calls Trump’s lawsuit against the state “frivolous.”
Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel added: “Michigan elections have been conducted in a transparent manner, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure all ballots are counted fairly and accurately. “
Election watchers from both sides abounded Wednesday at one of the main polling places in question, the TCF Center in Detroit, The Associated Press noted. They registered at a table near the entrance to Hall E of the convention center and walked between the tables where the vote was being processed.
In some cases, they came in droves and huddled together for a group discussion before fanning out. Uniformed Detroit cops were available to make sure everyone behaved.
Mark Brewer, a former state Democratic president who said he was watching Detroit’s vote count as a volunteer attorney, said he had been at TCF Stadium all day and had spoken to other people who had been there the past few days. He said Republicans had not been denied access.
“This is the best absentee counting operation Detroit has ever had. They are counting the ballots very efficiently, despite the obstruction tactics of the Republicans. ”
Republican attorneys had already launched absentee voting legal challenges in Pennsylvania and Nevada, challenging local decisions that could gain national importance in closed elections.
In an appeal to a Pennsylvania appeals court, the Trump campaign complained that one of its representatives was prevented from seeing the writing on the mail ballots that were being opened and processed in Philadelphia. A Philadelphia judge dismissed it, saying poll watchers are ordered to observe, not audit.
The Georgia lawsuit filed in Chatham County essentially asks a judge to make sure state laws are followed on absentee ballots. Campaign officials said they were considering peppering a dozen other counties across the state with similar claims about absentee ballots.
Trump, addressing supporters at the White House Wednesday morning, spoke about taking the indecisive race to the Supreme Court. Although it was unclear what he was referring to, his comments evoked a replay of the court’s intervention in the 2000 presidential election that ended with a decision that effectively handed the presidency over to George W. Bush.
But there are important differences from 2000 and they were already on display. In 2000, Republican-controlled Florida was in critical condition, and Bush held onto a small lead. Democrat Al Gore called for a recount and the Supreme Court stopped him.
For some electoral law experts, asking the Supreme Court to intervene now seemed premature, if not hasty.
A case would have to come to court from a state where the outcome would determine the winner of the election, wrote Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, on the Election Law blog. The difference between the candidates’ vote totals should be less than the ballots at stake in the lawsuit.
David Goldman / AP
People attend a rally calling for every vote in yesterday’s general election to be counted near the Detroit Elections Department building.
“From this point on (although things may change), neither condition appears to be met,” Hasen wrote.
Ohio State University electoral law professor Edward Foley wrote on Twitter Wednesday: “Valid votes will be counted. (The Supreme Court) would be involved only if there were votes of questionable validity that would make a difference, which might not be the case. The rule of law will determine the official winner of the popular vote in each state. Let the rule of law work. “
Biden’s campaign attorney, Bob Bauer, said that if Trump goes to the highest court, “he will meet one of the most embarrassing defeats a president has ever suffered in the highest court in the country.”
The judges could decide to intervene in the dispute over the three-day extension for absentee ballots if they prove crucial to the outcome in Pennsylvania.
Even a small number of contested votes could matter if a state determines the winner of the election and the gap between Trump and Biden is small.
