U.S. top court blocks Texas suit over results

WASHINGTON— The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit by Texas that had asked the court to throw out the election results in four battleground states that President Donald Trump lost in November, ending any prospect that a brazen attempt to use the courts to reverse his defeat at the polls would succeed.

The court, in a brief unsigned order, said Texas lacked standing to pursue the case.

The order, coupled with another one Tuesday turning away a similar request from Pennsylvania Republicans, signaled that a conservative court with three justices appointed by Trump refused to be drawn into the extraordinary effort by the president and many prominent members of his party to deny his Democratic opponent, former vice-president Joe Biden, his victory.

Texas’ lawsuit, filed directly in the Supreme Court, asked the court to bar Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from casting their electoral votes for Biden and to shift the selection of electors to the states’ legislatures. That would have required the justices to throw out millions of votes.

Trump has said he expected to prevail in the Supreme Court, after rushing the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October in part in the hope that she would vote in Trump’s favor in election disputes.

The electoral college is due to meet Monday, meaning Trump’s efforts to change the outcome of the election will soon be at an end.