Trump seeks reversal of loss in Pennsylvania
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s campaign said it turned to the US Supreme Court to challenge the election results in Pennsylvania, filing yet another long-shot appeal despite weeks of courtroom defeats and an electoral college vote last week that formalised Joe Biden’s victory.
The latest filing, announced on Sunday, takes the unorthodox step of trying to overturn three separate Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions with a single appeal. Although all three decisions are weeks old, the campaign asked the court to put the cases on an ultra-expedited track with the goal of a ruling before Congress meets January 6 to count the electoral votes.
The Supreme Court has rejected two efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in pivotal states, each time without any justice publicly dissenting. On December 8, the court turned away a bid by Republican lawmakers to reverse Biden’s win in Pennsylvania. Three days later the court refused to let Texas sue to challenge the results in four states.
The new Trump appeal centres on the 2.6 million mail-in ballots cast in Pennsylvania. The campaign is challenging an October 23 ruling that said election officials shouldn’t try to verify that the signature on the ballot envelope matches the one on file. The appeal also seeks to overturn a November 23 ruling that said officials shouldn’t reject ballots because they lack a name, address or date on the envelope.
In addition, the appeal challenges a November 17 ruling that said Trump campaign representatives had adequate access to observe the vote-counting process in Philadelphia. The campaign says the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unconstitutionally changed the election rules established by the state legislature.
In a separate development, Trump is likely to unveil proposed tariffs on Vietnamese goods before he leaves office in January, currency and trade experts say, after the US treasury branded the growing US trade partner a “currency manipulator” last week.
US companies that import goods from Vietnam should brace for significant tariffs from the US Trade Representative’s “Section 301” investigation into currency valuation practices, experts say. Results of the probe, running in parallel with the treasury review announced last week, could be public as soon as January 7.