Trump’s bid to overturn millions of votes denied
A JUDGE in the US has dismissed a legal claim by Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn millions of votes in Pennsylvania, calling it a ‘Frankenstein’s Monster’ of a claim.
Matthew Brann said the bid to prevent officials from certifying Joe Biden – Mr Trump’s rival in the presidential election – as winner in the state was ‘strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations’.
District Judge Brann said Mr Trump ‘has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens’.
The lawsuit had alleged inconsistent treatment by county election officials of postal votes.
But the judge, nominated by former president Barack Obama, and a Republican and member of the conservative Federalist Society, wrote: ‘This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together.’
Law scholar Rick Hasen called it ‘a victory for the rule of law’, adding the campaign for Mr Trump (pictured) had relied on ‘the flimsiest legal theory imaginable’.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he was disappointed with the ruling and will appeal, adding the decision will ‘ help us in our strategy to get expe
ditiously to the US Supreme Court’. The campaign will ask the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in which four of the judges were nominated by Mr Trump, to review the ruling on an accelerated timetable. For him to have any hope of overturning the election, he needs to reverse the outcome in Pennsylvania, which is scheduled to be certified by state officials today. The Trump campaign has filed dozens of lawsuits.
Attempts to thwart the certification of the election in swing states have already failed in Georgia, Michigan and Arizona. Under Pennsylvania law, the candidate who wins the popular vote gets its 20 electoral votes. A presidential candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win and Mr Biden leads the count by 306-232.