Judges dismiss Trump claims in Georgia, Michigan

WASHINGTON (AP):

Judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly dismissed Trump campaign lawsuits Thursday, undercutting a campaign legal strategy to attack the integrity of the voting process in states where the result could mean President Donald Trump’s defeat.

The rulings came as Democrat Joe Biden inched closer to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the Trump campaign won an appellate ruling to get party and campaign observers closer to election workers who are processing mail-in ballots in Philadelphia.

But the order did not affect the counting of ballots that is proceeding in Pennsylvania.

BASELESS CHALLENGES

Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer called the Republican legal challenges meritless.

“I want to emphasise that for their purposes these lawsuits don’t have to have merit. That’s not the purpose. ... It is to create an opportunity for them to message falsely about what’s taking place in the electoral process,” Bauer said Thursday, accusing the Trump campaign of “continually alleging irregularities, failures of the system and fraud without any basis”.

Biden said Wednesday the count should continue in all states, adding, “No one’s going to take our democracy away from us – not now, not ever.”

But Trump campaign officials accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, despite no evidence anything of the sort was taking place.

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, in a call with reporters Thursday morning, said that “every night the president goes to bed with a lead” and every night new votes “are mysteriously found in a sack”.

Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said additional legal action was expected and would be focused on giving campaign officials access to where ballots were being counted.

“We will literally be going through every single ballot,” he said of the count in hotly contested Nevada.

REQUEST FOR RECOUNT

Trump’s campaign has also announced that it will ask for a recount in Wisconsin. Stepien previously cited “irregularities in several Wisconsin counties”, without providing specifics.

The Associated Press called Wisconsin and Michigan for Biden on Wednesday. The AP has not called Georgia, Nevada or Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania and Michigan complaints largely involved access for campaign observers in locations where ballots are being processed and counted.

The Georgia case dealt with concerns about 53 absentee ballots in Chatham County. It was dismissed by a judge after elections officials in the Savannah-area county testified that all of those ballots had been received on time. Campaign officials said earlier they were considering similar challenges in a dozen other counties around the state.