Pennsylvania Judge Dismisses Trump’s Challenge Over Mail-In Ballots
Written by SOURCE on November 22, 2020
The Trump campaign has lost another lawsuit in his quest to deem the presidential election as fraudulent.
CNN reports that a federal judge dismissed the case on Saturday, which would invalidate millions of mail-in votes in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that the sitting president needed in order to defeat Biden.
While it was largely improbable that the suit was going to succeed, Trump and his legal team—headed by Rudy Giuliani—were hoping the U.S. District Court judge would believe their claims of fraud and Trump’s attempt to reverse the president-elect’s popular vote. But Judge Matthew Brann—a well-known Pennsylvania Republican—rejected the case.
This was the last large-scale suit that was looking to throw out or block enough votes to pitch the key state back to Trump’s side. Brann’s decision is the 30th loss or withdrawal of a case that the Trump campaign has had since Election Day, among two wins, which involved minor numbers of votes.
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated,” US District Court Judge Matthew Brann wrote on Saturday.
He also reprimanded Trump’s lawyers for not including factual proof that would invalidate the state’s votes.
“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened,” Brann added. “Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence.”
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more,” the judge wrote. “At bottom, Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”
Pennsylvania counties are slated to certify election results on Monday. Judges in New Jersey and Nevada also dismissed Trump’s challenges to mail-in votes.
