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UPDATE 2: On Nov. 22, 2020, President Donald J. Trump’s re-election campaign might have been dealt a heavy blow in a Pennsylvania court Saturday, but it picked itself back up Sunday and filed an appeal with the 3rd Circuit, signaling its intention to keep challenging the Keystone State’s vote count.
UPDATE: As of Nov. 17, 2020, President Donald J. Trump’s legal campaign to contest and block the official certification of Pennsylvania’s election results has changed erratically—over the last week, claims have been dropped, lawyers have left, new lawyers have been hired, and revised allegations have been considered.
The Trump campaign filed a new lawsuit Monday to try to stop Pennsylvania from certifying the state’s election results on vague allegations of fraud in at least seven counties, most of them Democratic strongholds.
In keeping with the campaign’s efforts to challenge mail-in voting across the country before and after Election Day, the Trump campaign’s latest lawsuit targets Pennsylvania’s handling of millions of paper ballots, both in processing and counting them. Lawyers for the campaign claim observers representing Trump were denied “meaningful access” to view the count in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh where the majority of mail-in ballots counted so far were not for Trump.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden was unofficially declared the winner of the presidential race on Saturday afternoon when the vote count in Pennsylvania reached a point that national news outlets, on television, in print, and online, determined he would carry the commonwealth and its 20 electoral votes and, therefore, the country.
Trump has not conceded the election. As of Tuesday morning, he is projected to have won 214 electoral votes and 71.5 million votes nationwide. Biden is projected to have won 279 electoral votes and 76.2 million votes. The final counts in North Carolina and Alaska are forecasted to be in favor of Trump, giving him just 18 more electoral votes, while Arizona and Georgia are predicted to add to Biden’s lead, netting him 27 more electoral votes.
A candidate needs to win a minimum of 270 electoral votes to be elected president.
Election workers in the Keystone state and elsewhere are continuing to process and count their remaining paper ballots and provisional ballots this week. By state law, the deadline for Pennsylvania to certify its election results is Nov. 23.
By Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Department of State reported Biden was leading Trump by 47,075 votes. Another 52,998 mail-in ballots were yet to be counted.
In addition to arguing its observers were not allowed to be close enough to the counting action, the Trump campaign is also alleging election officials in several counties unlawfully gave voters the opportunity to “cure” mail-in ballots they submitted with procedural defects, such as forgetting to sign the outside of the envelope or forgetting to include the inner privacy envelope.
Essentially, the Trump campaign’s lawsuit argues that seven Pennsylvania counties that have more registered Democratic voters than Republicans treated their Republican voters unfairly.
The legal complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, names Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the bureaus of elections in Allegheny, Centre, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia counties as defendants.
The lawsuit contains few detailed claims beyond anecdotal reports of malfunctioning ballot processing machines, poll workers being able to see who voters casting provisional ballots at the polling places were choosing, and as many as seven voters who were not made to sign the registration book in their polling place.
In one instance, in Chester County, the campaign claims an observer “witnessed one election worker responsible for resolving over-voted and under-voted ballots by subjectively determining who the elector intended to choose on the empty votes. The observer reports that in numerous instances the election worker altered the over-voted ballot by changing votes that had been marked for Donald J. Trump to another candidate.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who won his own bid for re-election on Nov. 3, told The Hill that Trump’s claims of voter fraud are false.
“This is the latest meritless lawsuit to challenge Pennsylvania’s election, which was overseen by bipartisan election officials and was lawful, fair and secure,” he reportedly told The Hill. “For months, the vast majority of these lawsuits have been dismissed and found to have no merit by Courts at all levels, and this one is no different.”
The Trump campaign’s lawsuit also restates a claim made in a separate action filed last week – that the campaign’s poll watchers were being kept “far away” from the vote counting in Philadelphia.
The first judge to consider that case, which included an emergency request for access, rejected the campaign’s assertions because the state’s election law only requires observers be allowed in the room where a count is being conducted.
The campaign appealed and an appellate court judge ordered Trump’s campaign observers be allowed to move up to six feet away from the counting at the convention center.
County officials said they had originally set the observation area 10 feet from the counting.
The latest lawsuit against Pennsylvania is one in a barrage of legal challenges filed before and after Election Day, mostly by Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, regarding election integrity and mail-in voting. Many states adopted greater mail-in voting measures this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Since Election Day, the Trump campaign has been waging court battles in several states based on claims of voting fraud. Among them is a case filed against a county in Arizona where election officials are accused of misdirecting voters regarding “overvote” warnings.
Voters who choose more than one candidate for a race in Maricopa County, or whose ballot is read as having two selections, get an overvote warning from the tabulating machine. The voters are supposed to have the option of having the ballot “spoiled,” or invalidated, and voting again or physically depositing their ballot in a special drawer to be reviewed at the counting center.
The lawsuit claims poll workers reportedly deviated from those instructions and instead told the voters to press a button to override the warning message.
Did you vote in Pennsylvania? What did you think about the process? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
The Trump Campaign is represented by Ronald L. Hicks Jr. and Carolyn B. McGee of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP and Linda A. Kerns of The Law Offices of Linda A. Kerns LLC.
The Trump Campaign Lawsuit is Donald J. Trump for President Inc., et al. v. Kathy Boockvar, et al., Case No. 4:20-cv-02078, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
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One thought on Trump Campaign Sues to Stop Pennsylvania Certifying Election Results
Pretty good articles but it’s obvious which side the writers are on. Not one time did the writer explain the process in which democrat run state courts really are an extension of the governors office. Which has great impact on rulings and the reason most end up at the Supreme Court,