Trump’s legal campaign to discredit Joe Biden’s victory is highly unlikely to change the outcome.
US President Donald Trump’s contentious campaign to discredit President-elect Joe Biden’s victory is highly unlikely to change the election outcome and is mostly about politics and fundraising, according to electoral law experts.
Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral 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 fully transparent election in which every legal ballot is counted and every illegal ballot is not counted.”
But the lawsuits don’t reflect that rhetoric, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
“In the political realm, we see accusations of massive electoral fraud. But in court, if you look at the cases, it’s totally different,” Levinson said.
What the cases say
Since polling day, the Trump campaign has sued Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.
A common claim in many of them is that Republican poll observers were denied proper access to vote counting sites in Democratic-leaning areas.
The most sweeping cases, filed this week in Michigan and Pennsylvania, are aimed at preventing officials in those states from certifying Biden as the winner.
In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign alleged that a lack of observer access, combined with inadequate voter identification and other factors, made postal voting untrustworthy.
In Michigan, the Trump campaign alleged that Republican poll observers were not allowed to view the mail-in ballot count at a Detroit convention center.
The alleged fraud of Trump’s lawyer?
Despite Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter, his campaign’s initial lawsuits did not allege voter fraud.
In the Michigan Nov. 11 case, the campaign included affidavits from Republican poll observers that suggested fraud may have occurred, but provided little evidence.
A Republican challenger said polling officers “duplicated ballots in incorrect constituencies in order to pass two ballots for the same person.” He said he saw this happen 20 to 30 times, but did not say whether he tried to challenge the alleged acts.
Karl Rove, a prominent Republican strategist, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 11 that Trump’s lawsuits had presented no evidence of the type of systemic fraud that would be required to reverse 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 end result,” Rove wrote.
How is Trump doing in court?
Trump has had a few narrow victories in Pennsylvania.
On November 5, a judge complied with his campaign’s request to closely observe Philadelphia poll workers as they counted postal ballots. The campaign also won a decision disqualifying a small number of mail-in ballots for new Pennsylvania voters who were unable to confirm their identities.
Judges quickly dismissed other Trump lawsuits, including one in Michigan over ballot observer access and one in Georgia seeking a court order not to count late ballots.
What is Trump’s end game?
Legal experts have said the lawsuits appear to be aimed at casting doubt on Biden’s victory in tightly contested states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
If the courts have ruled out officials from certifying results in those states, it opens the door for Republican state legislatures to say he was the real winner and that the state’s electoral votes should go to him. The US Congress would then have to decide which electoral votes to recognize.
Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have previously rejected this theory, saying the legislature has no role in allocating electoral votes.
What is Trump’s strongest case?
Legal experts have said the most promising case for Trump is the one pending before the United States Supreme Court in which Republicans are trying to overturn a ruling allowing Pennsylvania election officials to count ballots posted before on polling day as long as they have been received up to three days. later.
Conservative judges refused to expedite the case before election day, but suggested they could reconsider it.
The case has important implications for states as it could clarify the role of legislatures and courts in setting electoral rules.
This will not affect Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, as 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.
