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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s litigation campaign to discredit the victory of President-elect Joe Biden is highly unlikely to change the outcome of the election and is primarily about politics and fundraising, according to election law experts.
Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He claims he won the November 3 election and accused Democrats of trying to “steal” him.
The Trump campaign has said it is fighting for a “free, fair and completely transparent election in which every legal ballot is counted and not every illegal ballot is counted.”
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But the lawsuits don’t reflect this rhetoric, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
“On the political front, we see allegations of massive voter fraud. But in court, if you look at the cases, it’s totally different,” Levinson said.
WHAT DO THE CASES SAY?
Since Election Day, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.
A common accusation in many of them is that Republican election watchers were denied proper access to vote counting sites in Democratic-leaning areas.
The most radical cases, filed this week in Michigan and Pennsylvania, seek to prevent officials in those states from certifying Biden as a winner.
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In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign claimed that lack of access by observers, combined with inadequate verification of voters’ identities and other factors, made voting by mail unreliable.
In Michigan, the Trump campaign alleged that Republican election watchers were unable to see the mail-in ballot count at a Detroit convention center.
HAVE TRUMP’S LAWYERS ALLEGED FRAUD?
Despite Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter, his initial campaign lawsuits did not allege voter fraud.
In the Michigan case on Nov. 11, the campaign included affidavits from Republican election watchers that suggested fraud may have occurred, but provided little evidence.
One Republican contender said poll workers “were duplicating ballots in wrong constituencies to pass two ballots for the same person.” He said he saw it happen 20 to 30 times, but did not say whether he tried to challenge these alleged actions.
Karl Rove, a prominent Republican strategist, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on November 11 that Trump’s lawsuits have presented no evidence of the kind of systemic fraud that would be needed to overturn Biden’s victory.
“The president’s efforts are unlikely to move a single state from Mr. Biden’s column, and they are certainly not enough to change the bottom line,” Rove wrote.
HOW IS TRUMP DOING IN COURT?
Trump has had some narrow victories in Pennsylvania.
On November 5, a judge agreed to his campaign’s request to closely observe Philadelphia poll workers as they counted mail ballots. The campaign also won a ruling disqualifying a small number of mail-in ballots for first-time Pennsylvania voters who could not confirm identification.
Judges quickly dismissed other Trump lawsuits, including one in Michigan related to observer access to the polls and another in Georgia seeking a court order not to count late ballots.
WHAT IS THE END GAME OF TRUMP?
Legal experts said the lawsuits appear to be aimed at casting doubt on Biden’s victory in hotly contested states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
If the courts prevent officials from certifying results in those states, it opens the door for Republican state legislatures to argue that he was the real winner and that the state’s electoral votes should go to him. The United States Congress would then have to decide which electoral votes to recognize.
Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have already rejected this theory, saying the legislature has no role in granting electoral votes.
WHAT IS TRUMP’S STRONGEST CASE?
Legal experts said the most promising case for Trump is one pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, in which Republicans are trying to undo a decision allowing Pennsylvania election officials to count postmarked mail ballots. of the day of the elections, as long as they are received up to three days. then.
Conservative judges refused to expedite the case before Election Day, but suggested they could review it.
The case has important implications for states because it could clarify the role of legislatures and courts in setting electoral rules.
It won’t affect Biden’s win in Pennsylvania because state officials said only 10,000 ballots were received during the period in question. Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania is more than 53,000 votes, according to Edison Research.
