USA TODAY International Edition
Ballot battles grind on in states
Trump legal maneuvers still seen as long shots
It’s been nearly two weeks since President- elect Joe Biden won the White House, but the drama surrounding vote counting and results continued in several states Thursday.
President Donald Trump has spent the weeks since Election Day arguing that voter fraud cost him reelection. His campaign has filed multiple lawsuits in several swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada.
After several developments in Michigan, the Republican leaders of the Michigan House of Representatives and Senate are expected to meet with Trump at the White House on Friday, a source briefed on the meeting told USA TODAY. The reported visit comes as Trump and his supporters find little legal relief in their ongoing attempts to show that Michigan’s election results are illegitimate.
Both Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirke have said they have no plans for any long- shot maneuvers aimed at the Republican Legislature naming an alternate set of proTrump electors for Michigan. But Michigan Democrats slammed their decision to meet with Trump while the state sees surging COVID- 19 cases.
The legislative leaders are not the first Michigan officials contacted by the president. On Thursday, Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chairwoman Monica Palmer told the Free Press the president called her Tuesday night.
The call came after Palmer and a fellow Republican member of the board reversed their positions, agreeing to join Democrats in certifying the county’s election results. The two GOP members initially balked at certification, leaving the four- member board deadlocked 2- 2.
On Thursday, Palmer and fellow Re
publican member William Hartmann filed affidavits stating they would like to reverse course again and not support certifying Wayne County results. There is no legal mechanism to change their votes, but the Trump campaign cited an inaccurate characterization of these affidavits on Thursday as its rationale for withdrawing a federal lawsuit filed last week in Michigan.
In Wisconsin, the requested recount turned into a partisan brawl Wednesday night, well before the first votes began to be re- tallied.
The three Republicans and three Democrats on the Wisconsin Elections Commission clashed repeatedly in a late- night virtual meeting as they tried to establish guidelines spelling out how clerks should conduct the recount during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I would be delighted to see this commission actually function,” Commission Chairwoman Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said as she sought to find a way for the two sides to decide how to consider revisions to the commission’s recount manual for clerks.
At 11: 30 p. m., after 51⁄ hours of often
2 rancorous debate, the commission unanimously approved the recount. The commissioners inability to get along suggested the recount will be brutal and will likely end in a courtroom.
Trump’s campaign sought the recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties after he lost the state by about 20,600 votes. That’s a margin of about 0.6 percentage points. The recount is to begin Friday and be finished by Dec. 1, in time for the state to certify the results.
The commissioners argued over issues minor and significant, including how to consider claims that absentee ballots were illegally issued and where observers could station themselves.
At one point, Republican Commissioner Dean Knudson suggested all the absentee ballots requested through the state’s online portal were invalid because of the way the system logs those requests.
Democrats said that position was ridiculous, noting myvote. wi. gov is broadly used by voters to request ballots.
Trump’s legal team also claimed Thursday that they have evidence of voter fraud, even though no court has agreed and legal analysts across the political spectrum say that various lawsuits are going nowhere.
In a statement lasting more than 40 minutes, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani alleged inadequate ballot inspections and improper procedures in big cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milwaukee – but also referred to “affidavits” with vague suspicions.
In promoting the news conference, Trump tweeted his lawyers are “on a very clear and viable path to victory,” but few if any outside legal analysts believe that.