Tag: 2020 election

Trump’s legal fight targets Black Americans

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President Trump‘s efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election through legal action have become increasingly focused on throwing out votes in cities in key electoral battlegrounds, a development that would impact significant Black populations.

The efforts have prompted a strong pushback, particularly in Michigan, a center of this week’s fight.

“You could see the racism in the behavior last night,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) said Wednesday morning after two GOP Trump allies on the Board of Canvassers for Wayne County — home to Detroit, the country’s largest predominantly Black city — had initially refused to certify the county’s election results, claiming widespread voting fraud in Motor City. Continue reading.

Trump’s latest Pennsylvania lawsuit asks judge to just declare Trump the winner

A new complaint asks a judge to throw out 1.5 million votes based on a lie that Trump observers were not allowed to witness ballot counting.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday amended its lawsuit in Pennsylvania yet again, this time asking a judge to simply toss out 1.5 million votes in the state and declare Donald Trump the winner — adding back in the lie that Trump campaign observers were not allowed to witness ballot counting, and thus all of the ballots should be thrown out.

“Upon information and belief, a substantial portion of the approximately 1.5 million absentee and mail votes in Defendant Counties should not have been counted, and the vast majority favored Biden, thus resulting in returns indicating Biden won Pennsylvania,” the campaign wrote in its amended lawsuit.

The claim is a lie, as observers were allowed in to witness ballot counting in the state. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said as much in a 5-2 ruling on Tuesday. Continue reading.

Federal judge rejects Trump ally’s bid to block election certification in Georgia

The judge, who was appointed by the president, delivered a withering assessment of the suit filed by a prominent attorney.

Another bid by an ally of President Donald Trump to overturn the results of this month’s election was roundly rejected in court on Thursday, as a federal judge appointed by Trump turned down a bid to block the certification of President-elect Joe Biden as the victor in Georgia.

At the conclusion of a three-hour virtual hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Grimberg delivered a withering assessment of the suit that a prominent attorney, Lin Wood, filed to try to stop officials from finalizing a tally that has Trump trailing Biden by more than 12,000 votes.

Grimberg said it was clear that, as an individual voter, Wood lacked legal standing to mount the challenge to Georgia’s election procedures. But the judge — a former prosecutor whom Trump nominated last year — also emphasized that evidence of improprieties seemed limited to isolated cases and far short of what would be needed to justify a federal judge stepping in to alter the state’s election results. Continue reading.

Trump Targets Michigan in His Ploy to Subvert the Election

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In a brazen step, the president invited Republican state leaders in Michigan to the White House as he and his allies try to prevent the state from certifying Joe Biden’s clear victory there.

President Trump on Thursday accelerated his efforts to interfere in the nation’s electoral process, taking the extraordinary step of reaching out directly to Republican state legislators from Michigan and inviting them to the White House on Friday for discussions as the state prepares to certify President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner there.

For Mr. Trump and his Republican allies, Michigan has become the prime target in their campaign to subvert the will of voters backing Mr. Biden in the recent election. Mr. Trump called at least one G.O.P. elections official in the Detroit area this week after she voted to certify Mr. Biden’s overwhelming victory there, and he is now set to meet with legislators ahead of Michigan’s deadline on Monday to certify the results.

The president has also asked aides what Republican officials he could call in other battleground states in his effort to prevent the certification of results that would formalize his loss to Mr. Biden, several advisers said. Trump allies appear to be pursuing a highly dubious legal theory that if the results are not certified, Republican legislatures could intervene and appoint pro-Trump electors in states Mr. Biden won who would support the president when the Electoral College meets on Dec. 14. Continue reading.

Biden maintains lead in Georgia after completion of hand recount

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President-elect Joe Biden held onto his lead over President Trump in Georgia on Thursday after the state completed a days-long hand recount of nearly 5 million votes.

With all of the state’s 59 counties reporting their results, Biden holds a 12,284-vote edge over Trump, only slightly narrower than the roughly 14,000-vote lead the president-elect held in the initial vote tally.

“Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a statement Thursday. “This is a credit to the hard work of our county and local elections officials who moved quickly to undertake and complete such a momentous task in a short period of time.” Continue reading.

Trump Campaign Spent Months Pressing Georgia’s Top Election Official For Endorsement — And He Declined

Long before Republican senators began publicly denouncing how Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled the voting there, he withstood pressure from the campaign of Donald Trump to endorse the president for reelection.

Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. He later rejected GOP requests to support Trump publicly, he and his staff said in interviews. Raffensperger said he believed that, because he was overseeing the election, it would be a conflict of interest for him to take sides. Around the country, most secretaries of state remain officially neutral in elections.

The attacks on his job performance are “clear retaliation,” Raffensperger said. “They thought Georgia was a layup shot Republican win. It is not the job of the secretary of state’s office to deliver a win — it is the sole responsibility of the Georgia Republican Party to get out the vote and get its voters to the polls. That is not the job of the secretary of state’s office.” Continue reading.

Pennsylvania judge has heard enough from Rudy Giuliani — cancels scheduled evidentiary hearing

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A federal judge based in Pennsylvania has heard enough from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Judge Matthew Brann of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Wednesday announced (PDF) that he was formally canceling an evidentiary hearing that had been scheduled to take place on Thursday.

“The evidentiary hearing previously scheduled for Thursday, November 19, 2020 is CANCELLED,” the judge wrote in his order, which also denied a motion by Trump attorney Linda Kerns to sanction opposing counsel for a supposedly “threatening” phone call. Continue reading.

The Trump campaign was not denied access to Philadelphia’s ballot count

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“They didn’t even allow Republican Observers into the building to watch. A terrible insult to our Constitution!”

— President Trump, in a tweet, Nov. 18, 2020

Trump is in overdrive, tweeting one absurd falsehood after another to delegitimize the election he lost.

One repeated theme is that Republican observers were not allowed inside the room as election workers counted mail ballots in Philadelphia. Fraud thrives under cover of darkness, Trump warns.

But, in fact, Trump’s own lawyers have attested in court that his campaign was granted access and observed the process, both in Philadelphia and in other cities, and has found no evidence of fraud. Continue reading.

Farm support holds for Trump, but Biden may find inroads

End to aid payments in 2021 could cut deeply into incomes

President Donald Trump tenaciously courted farmers and ranchers with an anti-regulatory agenda and a confrontational trade approach that opened some markets.

But he also relied on billions in federal aid to compensate them for retaliatory tariffs and a pandemic that took a deep gouge out of the economy.

Despite the mixed performance, Trump’s policies on trade, regulation and other areas maintained his popularity in rural and farm communities, winning their support in the Nov. 3 election. Continue reading.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejects complaints about Philadelphia election observations

The Trump campaign argued that observers were stationed too far away to actually see the process of counting votes.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 5-2 on Tuesday that observers’ rights to watch ballot counting was sufficient in Philadelphia, rejecting a claim from President Donald Trump’s campaign that poll observers didn’t get “meaningful access.”

The Trump campaign argued that observers were stationed too far away to actually see the process of counting votes, and a lower court initially agreed with them, ordering that they be allowed closer to the process. The state Supreme Court, which had previously rejected other Republican arguments, vacated that lower court order on Tuesday.

“We conclude the Board did not act contrary to law in fashioning its regulations governing the positioning of candidate representatives during the precanvassing and canvassing process, as the Election Code does not specify minimum distance parameters for the location of such representatives,” the court wrote in its majority order. “Critically, we find the Board’s regulations as applied herein were reasonable in that they allowed candidate representatives to observe the Board conducting its activities as prescribed under the Election Code.” Continue reading.