Trump campaign files election lawsuits
Washington, Nov 5 (efe-epa).- President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has launched a legal offensive to stop the forward motion of his rival, Democrat Joe Biden, who is on the verge of winning the White House after top US media outlets reported and projected that he had won the popular vote in several key states, in addition to the traditionally “blue” (Democratic) states he had been expected to win.
These are the lawsuits that the president’s campaign so far has filed to challenge the electoral process, the ongoing vote count and other issues – all apparently, although Democrats would say quite obviously, with an eye toward short-circuiting Biden’s anticipated win in the Electoral College, where 270 votes are needed to win the presidency and the former vice president at present has been deemed to have won 264 and Trump 214.
Biden is also ahead at this point by about 3.5 million votes in the nationwide popular vote count and appears to have garnered the most votes of any presidential candidate in history.
NEVADA – ALLEGED GHOST VOTES
Without providing any evidence for the claim, the Trump team has said that there was election fraud in the key state of Nevada because some 10,000 people who do not live there were allowed to submit ballots and, in addition, the votes of deceased citizens were counted – presumably for Biden.
In this and other cases, the campaign’s allegations appear to be based on misinformation or outright hoaxes. For example, election authorities in each state frequently and regularly review the voter lists to eliminate names of people who have died, and thus there is no evidence that this type of situation is a generalized problem.
Nevada courts still have not ruled on the matter. All the lawsuits that Trump has filed ultimately could wind up in the hands of the US Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority and three of the justices were nominated to the lifetime seats on the high court by the president.
LAWSUIT AGAINST GEORGIA’S DEMOCRATIC REDOUBT
The Trump campaign has decided to file a lawsuit in Chatham County, where the city of Savannah is located and which has strong Democratic voting tendencies and therefore is inclined to provide Biden with a fair number of votes.
However, again without providing any evidence, the campaign claimed that in that county a Republican election observer saw 53 ballots added late to a stack of mail-in votes that arrived in time to be counted. To be valid, ballots in Georgia must arrive at election headquarters before 7 pm on Election Day, which was last Tuesday, Nov. 3.
A judge in Georgia on Thursday threw out the lawsuit due to a lack of evidence provided by the plaintiff.
“RUMORS” IN MICHIGAN
Trump’s team alleged that the Michigan secretary of state, Democrat Jocelyn Benson, the state’s top election official, was allowing ballots to be counted that had been deposited in advance without the supervision of election observers from both main parties.
Thus, they asked for the vote count to be halted and for those ballots that Republican observers allegedly had not had access to to be reviewed.
A local judge on Thursday rejected that request saying that it was based on “rumors” and, in addition, noting that the vote count has practically come to a conclusion in Michigan, and thus the lawsuit was filed too late.
MORE ACCESS IN PENNSYLVANIA
The president’s campaign filed suit demanding that Republican observers be allowed to more closely view – that is, from less than 6 feet away – any vote counting activity, so that they might better monitor the process.
The Pennsylvania court ruled on Thursday in favor of Trump but its decision has a limited impact, since it does not halt or delay the count or invalidate any portion of the count made so far in this swing state.
RESORTING TO THE SUPREME COURT
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign on Wednesday asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to join a lawsuit already filed by the Pennsylvania Republican Party.
