The Trump campaign and 17 Republican-led states have joined Texas’ dubious lawsuit seeking to block four key swing states from casting their electoral votes for President-elect Joe Biden, NBC News reports.
The lawsuit asked the Supreme Court to block Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from casting their electoral votes for Biden, who won the popular vote in each of the states. Officials in the four states have dismissed the lawsuit as a baseless publicity stunt.
The suit claims that the four states changed their mail voting rules amid the coronavirus pandemic in violation of federal and state laws and creating a “massive opportunity for fraud” even though there has been no evidence of widespread fraud.
President Donald Trump and his allies have already lost more than three dozen federal and state cases alleging fraud and irregularities after failing to show any evidence of improprieties that could have swung any of the states’ elections.
The lawsuit effectively asks the Supreme Court to throw out more than 10 million votes and 62 Electoral College votes to hand Trump the election.
Legal experts say there is no chance of the suit succeeding.
Campaign, 17 states join suit:
The Trump campaign joined the suit on Wednesday.
“These things don’t normally happen,” Trump’s campaign said in a filing, claiming a poll finding that 75% of Republicans believe the election was stolen as evidence. “A large percentage of the American people know that something is deeply amiss.”
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia filed briefs in the case as well.
The Supreme Court gave the four states targeted in the suit until Thursday to respond.
Ex-GOP officials file brief trashing lawsuit:
Seventeen former Republican federal officials filed a brief to the Supreme Court in response to the filing calling for the suit to be dismissed.
“The Constitution does not make this Court the multidistrict litigation panel for trials of presidential election disputes,” the brief said, adding that the lawsuit makes “a mockery of federalism and separation of powers.”
“It would violate the most fundamental constitutional principles for this Court to serve as the trial court for presidential election disputes,” they added.
