Donald Trump says he will start prosecuting cases in court from Tuesday (AEDT) to prove that fraud and corruption stole the election away from him.
The president hopes that court victories will reverse the result and install him in the White House for a second term.
“Our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated,” Mr Trump said in a statement. “The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots.”
I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020
But after four days of searching for evidence to back the president’s claims, his legal team has not disclosed anything publicly that looks like it may succeed in a court.
The challenge for Mr Trump is a lot greater than it was in the famous legal battle over who won in Florida in the 2000 presidential election.
That decision, by the US Supreme Court, determined the winner of the contest between George W Bush and Al Gore.
But that legal battle was only waged over the results in one state.
To overturn Joe Biden’s victory, the president needs courts to overturn the results in at least three states.
For example, even if a court were to make an unlikely ruling that the count in Pennsylvania was tainted and therefore Trump won that state, he would still lose the election. That is because Biden’s victory Sunday in Nevada takes him past the 270 electoral college votes even without Pennsylvania.
NEW: Giuliani says Trump will file suit in Pennsylvania contesting Biden win. https://t.co/vg8cGvXdaa
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) November 7, 2020
In short, the size of Mr Biden’s victory, across multiple states makes it all but impossible for Mr Trump to overturn Biden’s victory through the courts.
The president is reportedly unhappy with his lawyers for not coming up with more evidence of fraud and corruption. But they may not have much material to play with.
The president’s legal team is especially focusing on Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral college votes.
The White House wants to challenge the rule that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up until three days after the election so long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rebuffed a legal challenge to the rule shortly before the poll. The US Supreme Court then considered the issue but gave a deadlocked 4 – 4 verdict, meaning there was no majority decision to block the rule.
.@CLewandowski_ on what the Trump campaign believes is a concrete example of voter fraud in #Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/psBS06Vw5F
— Team Trump (Text VOTE to 88022) (@TeamTrump) November 7, 2020
The White House is likely to try to ask the Supreme Court to look at the issue again. The mail-in votes that arrived after Election Day in Pennsylvania have been segregated in case they are challenged. The problem for Trump is that even if the Supreme Court ruled that these votes were ineligible, it may not change the outcome in the state. Currently, Biden leads the president by more than 30,000 votes in Pennsylvania, so he may win that state even if Trump prevailed in the court.
The other claim which the Trump camp is making is that its observers were not given proper access to monitor vote counting.
“In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media,” Trump said on Sunday.
The president has remarkable, but unsubstantiated claims of Republican observers being kept away from vote counting with the electoral workers putting up cardboard on windows to stop them watching or being kept so far away they need “binoculars” to see them. He even made claims about ballot boxes full of Biden votes appearing mysteriously in the middle of the night.
Such claims, at face value, appear highly unlikely. By law vote counting is monitored by election observers from both parties. The sort of widespread systematic corruption alleged by the president is, at this point, no more than a huge allegation with zero evidence to back it up.
In Nevada, Trump’s legal team has launched a lawsuit claiming that ballots have been illegally cast by people who live out of that state and even cast in the names of people who are dead.
The problem is that, even if a court found this was true, the Trump team only says that ‘thousands’ of votes may be illegal. Biden won the state with a 25,000 majority.
The president ended his statement on Saturday with the question; “So what is Biden hiding?” As things currently stand, the answer is not much at all.
(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor For Sky News Australia)
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