Trump’s remarks come after a system of legal defeats, which was rejected by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday, who said the Trump team presented no evidence of election fraud or malpractice despite seeking to disqualify millions of votes. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s chief lawyer in the case, said he wanted to appeal the case to the third circuit and to the Supreme Court if necessary.
But with few cases left in the courts, Trump’s options have shrunk and he is increasingly relying on long-term scenarios where election results are not certified and Republican-controlled statehouses in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia are urging him to declare.
GOP legislative leaders in those states have not endorsed this approach. Trump called Michigan legislators to the White House on Friday, but they later released a statement showing they saw no reason to intervene on Trump’s behalf.
To succeed, Trump’s plan will require many unprecedented legal action. First, the Republican-led legislatures in the Biden-winning states will need to counteract their state’s popular vote and appoint a slate of Trump voters when the electorate meets on Dec. 14. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, such maneuvers are certain to get vetoes from Democratic governors, so lawmakers will also need to make a legislative decision that they have the sole power to appoint voters – a disputed legal basis that has never been tested.
Trump’s call to lawmakers to hand over the election to state legislators to overturn the election results is by far the most explicit call. But it also outlines its dwindling options below: Michigan is due to certify its total number of votes on Monday, as are Pennsylvania counties, which hand over the duty of statewide certification to Secretary of State KT Booker, who is a Democrat. On Friday, Georgia certified Biden’s victory.
By Friday evening, Pennsylvania’s G.O.P. Leaders said they had not received an invitation to meet Trump at the White House, but last month, they said they would not take steps to change the election results.
