The Trump campaign and Republican face several remaining court battles in states the president needs to flip to win re-election. Some cases have been brought by the campaign itself; others involve outside groups or individuals.
A brief summary:
Arizona: Kelli Ward, who leads the Republican Party of Arizona, is challenging the election results, arguing that the state’s vote-by-mail procedures are too lax, and that observers were not able to verify the ballots being counted. She wants the state’s certification of the election results to be set aside until the signatures that accompany absentee ballots can be reviewed. Update: Sidney Powell filed another lawsuit in Arizona on Wednesday, similar those she has filed elsewhere (see below).
Georgia: Sidney Powell is suing to block the certification of results and toss out mail-in ballots because of alleged faults in the Dominion voting machines and the Smartmatic software. A lawsuit by the Thomas More Society also argues that the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) funded public “safe elections” operations in predominantly Democratic countries, violating state law and also violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Michigan: Sidney Powell has a lawsuit similar to the Michigan suit. The Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society is suing over Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s decision to send absentee ballot request forms to every registered voter, allegedly with no authority and lax standards. It argues observers were not allowed proper oversight, and cites affidavits stating some ballots were counted multiple times, among other irregularities. It also cites Zuckerberg and CTCL’s efforts.
Nevada: In Law v. Whitmer, the Trump campaign has sued six electors for Joe Biden on behalf of six Republican electors, alleging that Nevada authorities “developed an implemented an election system that was highly susceptible to fraud and abuse.” The lawsuit specifically claims that with a flood of mail-in ballots, officials in Clark County (home to Las Vegas) used electronic verification methods that are allegedly unreliable. It also lists other problems, such as computer malfunctions.
Pennsylvania: There are several active cases. Two are particularly important. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a Republican challenge last week to the state’s vote-by-mail law, Act 77 of 2019, citing the doctrine of laches — i.e. because it supposedly came too late, and after Republicans had a chance to sue in the primary election. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the Trump campaign’s effort to block certification. Both cases have been appealed to the Supreme Court.
Wisconsin: A lawsuit by the Amos Center for Justice and Liberty seeks to have the state’s mail-in ballots that were placed in drop-off boxes invalidated, on the grounds that the boxes were illegal. Another lawsuit by the Wisconsin Voters Alliance also targets Zuckerberg’s donations to CTCL. It also says the state illegally relaxed voter ID by letting hundreds of thousands of voters claim they were “indefinitely confined,” tainting the results, which separate Biden and Trump by about 20,000 votes.
Current, updated databases of pending and resolved cases are maintained by Trump’s opponents, both here and here.
This story is developing.