Trump campaign’s challenge of election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona push US toward ‘loss of democracy’
Here’s how their electoral votes work
But these are unusual times.
The harm in letting these lawsuits play out is that “it’s not impossible that they will succeed,” said Chris Edelson, a government professor at American University, lawyer and fellow at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
“I just think everybody is freaking out because the Constitution and federal statutes have all these bizarre provisions” dealing with disputes over electoral votes, said Rick Hasen, an election law expert from the University of California-Irvine.
If judges allow Republican legislatures to overturn a vote of the people, Hasen said, “it would provoke massive social unrest. … I think it would be the end of American democracy as we know it.”
Michigan preps for ‘every set of circumstances’ amid election fight
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told USA TODAY that state authorities are preparing for such a worst-case scenario: A bid to push the Republican-controlled state legislature to appoint a slate of Trump electors to the Electoral College.
Nessel, however, said she did not know whether the Trump campaign would pursue such a strategy. She said such an effort would threaten “a loss of democracy.”
“We are preparing for every set of circumstances that could be imagined,” Nessel, a Democrat, said. “We absolutely intend to vigorously fight against that type of scenario.”
A federal lawsuit filed this week in Michigan asks a judge to block the state board of canvassers and Wayne County’s canvassing board from certifying election results if they contain fraudulent or illegally cast ballots. The suit alleges election officials backdated some ballots that were received late and excluded challengers from a “meaningful opportunity” to observe ballot processing.
The lawsuit includes affidavits from more than 100 people claiming a range of irregularities, from the improper tabulation of votes to denying observers access to counting. The claims, however, do not include evidence of widespread fraud, state officials said.
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Biden has a 146,000-vote lead in Michigan. The state canvassing board, two Democrats and two Republicans, is set to weigh certification Nov. 23.
That deadline is important.
In each state, a governmental body or official certifies the election results, essentially declaring the winner. It’s first done at the county level, then the state. The certification is used to determine which slate of electors — one for Biden, the other for Trump — will cast the state’s Electoral College votes.
Nine legal experts say Trump’s lawsuit challenging election results in Pennsylvania is dead on arrival
Matt Morgan, the general counsel for Trump’s campaign, told reporters Thursday the effort to delay certification in Pennsylvania is aimed at preserving the campaign’s shot at getting a recount.
He said the pause is needed to “get a handle on where our actual vote tallies are” to see if it falls within the 0.5% margin for an automatic recount. Biden leads Trump by 0.8% in Pennsylvania; bringing it under the threshold for a recount would require invalidating more than 20,000 votes.
The Trump campaign on Thursday filed a motion for an injunction ordering a “brief pause” in the certification process so it could to confirm a “well-founded theory that Pennsylvania election officials counted tens of thousands of invalid votes.” Attorneys for the Secretary of State filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that many of the Trump campaign claims amount to “minor perceived election code violations.”
Some GOP donors aren’t keen to help Trump with election lawsuits
A Republican with knowledge of the Trump campaign’s legal efforts in Pennsylvania acknowledged most Republicans there don’t believe the campaign has the legal case to delay certification of the results or overturn the outcome of the election. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly.
Part of the political strategy, the person said, may have to do with fundraising but also with “payback for all the Russia stuff; they tried to upend this guy tirelessly for years.”
Arizona legislature would choose electors if deadline isn’t met
The lawsuit in Arizona asserts that, where ink splotches or voter error caused an apparent vote for both candidates, some poll workers simply processed ballots anyway, causing those ballots to be counted without a selection in the presidential race. Republicans are seeking an injunction to suspend certification until those ballots are reviewed.
A lawyer for Maricopa County said just 180 presidential ballots were flagged for “overvotes.” Biden’s lead in Arizona: about 11,400 votes.
Zachery Henry, a Republican spokesman, said if Arizona fails to certify election results by Dec. 8, the “Arizona Legislature would decide an alternate procedure to appoint electors” under federal law. Both legislative houses in the state are controlled by Republicans.
Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, said she expects to finalize certification of results on Nov. 30, as scheduled. “Absent a court order that expressly requires the secretary to do otherwise, we will certify the election results pursuant to Arizona’s clearly established laws,” she said.
Deadlines in other states vary. In Wisconsin, the certification deadline is Dec. 1, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Nevada laws do not specify a deadline.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: Georgia recount will be done in time
Election officials in Georgia are dealing with a spate of fraud allegations lobbed by the Trump campaign. That’s where Biden’s margin is thinnest, but it’s still much greater than the number of ballots called into question.
The campaign alleged Wednesday that ballots were cast by four deceased Georgians, which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office pledged to investigate. He called on anyone with evidence of election fraud or irregularities to bring it forward.
Most GOP lawsuits challenging election results haven’t gone far:Here’s why
Raffensperger announced on Wednesday that the state would conduct a full, manual recount of the presidential election. Biden leads Trump in Georgia by roughly 14,000 votes out of nearly 5 million ballots cast, well within the 0.5% margin that triggers an automatic recount.
Raffensperger vowed the recount would be completed in time for the state’s deadline to certify results Nov. 20. “It will be a heavy lift, but we will work with the counties to get this done in time,” Raffensperger said.
It would be ‘political suicide’ for any legislature to override ‘will of its people’
Such recounts — or more lawsuits — could delay certifications beyond the federal deadline for states to formally submit their electoral votes to Congress, said Cathy Cox, a Democrat who was Georgia’s secretary of state in 2000 when the presidential race results in Florida were contested. She’s now the dean of Mercer University School of Law.
But she said it’s extremely unlikely that a state legislature would step in and try and appoint Trump electors. “I think it would be political suicide for any legislature to go against the popular will of its people,” she said.
Many observers have said the onslaught of lawsuits doesn’t appear to be guided by a coherent strategy.
“It appears to me that they’re simply shooting into the air randomly and hoping to bring an enemy plane down, and that does not have a very high likelihood of success, especially as the vote count margins continue to widen in favor of Biden,” said Republican lawyer Robert Kelner.
He leads the election and political law practice at Covington Burling. Other lawyers at his firm represent the Biden campaign, but Kelner is not involved.
But the longer the president and his campaign continue their legal offensive, there is a miniscule, “Hail Mary” chance they may shoot down that enemy plane, some specialists and scholars say.
Matthew Weil, director of the Election Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, suggested Biden’s sizeable lead in Michigan would discourage the intervention of the state legislature if it got to that point.
“I’m just very skeptical,” he said. “I’ve seen all the conspiracy theories” about voter fraud, he said, “but even if you accept them as fact, you still don’t get to the number you need.
“By next week, when the states begin getting closer to certification, I think you will see a lot of these legal challenges fizzle out.”
Contributing: John Fritze and David Jackson, USA TODAY
