Dec. 5 (UPI) — A federal appeals court on Saturday rejected a lawsuit attempting to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said conservative lawyer Lin Wood didn’t have a standing to sue and now that the state’s results have been certified, the effort was moot anyway.
Georgia certified the results of the election on Nov. 20, giving its 16 electoral votes to President-elect Joe Biden. President Donald Trump, his campaign, and other conservative groups and figures have launched dozens of lawsuits challenging the election results in several states.
The appellate court voted 3-0 to uphold a lower court’s ruling tossing Wood’s lawsuit.
The court added that it didn’t have jurisdiction in the case.
“We may not entertain post-election contests about garden-variety issues of vote counting and misconduct that may properly be filed in state courts.”
Wood’s lawsuit said a decision earlier this year on how elections officials should handle signature matching should have been made by the state legislature. The guidelines were agreed to by Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Democratic groups.
The panel’s ruling came one day after courts issued rulings in Trump campaign and conservative lawsuits in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan.
In Minnesota, the state Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a Republican lawsuit attempting to stop the certification of votes, accusing elections officials of mishandling absentee ballots.
The state certified the results of its vote Nov. 24, giving all 10 electoral votes to Biden.
The court said Republicans waited too late to file their lawsuit — hours before the certification — and that the process for how absentee ballots would be handled was determined months before Election Day.
In Michigan, a Court of Appeals panel declined to overturn a lower court’s rejection of the Trump campaign’s request to halt the counting and certification of the Wayne County’s results.
Michigan certified its results Nov. 23, giving its 16 electoral votes to Biden.
The court said the Trump lawsuit was moot because the vote count and certification process had already been completed.
“Perhaps the reason for plaintiff failing to discuss the impact of the certification is because such action by the Michigan State Board of Canvassers clearly rendered plaintiff’s claims for relief moot,” the ruling said.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court, meanwhile, dismissed a lawsuit brought by the conservative Wisconsin Voters Alliance to toss nearly 3.3 million votes, calling them invalid. They wanted the state’s legislature to determine how to cast the Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes.
Wisconsin certified its election results in favor of Biden on Nov. 30, and on Thursday, the state supreme court refused to hear a similar case brought by the Trump campaign.
“The relief being sought by the petitioners is the most dramatic invocation of judicial power I have ever seen,” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in the 4-3 ruling Friday.
“While the rough and tumble world of electoral politics may be the prism through which many view this litigation, it cannot be so for us. In these hallowed halls, the law must rule.”
Finally, in Arizona, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Friday dismissed the state Republican Party’s attempt to overturn the state’s vote for Biden.
The judge said he found “no misconduct, no fraud and no effect on the outcome of the election.
Arizona certified its 11 electoral votes in favor of Biden on Nov. 30.
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