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By: Nathaniel Ballantyne
President Trump unleashed a torrent of lawsuits seeking to stop the vote counts in many battleground states, but so far, Trump has faced a second defeat in courts in several states. Two cases have been thrown out, and the one case he prevailed on failed to halt Joe Biden’s march to the presidency.
A Michigan judge rejected the campaign’s request to halt the count of mail-in ballots, ruling the claims were pointless because the tally was almost over in a state where Biden has already been declared the winner.
“At this point, the essence of the count is completed, and the relief is completely unavailable,” Judge Cynthia Stephens said at a video hearing on Thursday.
Trump’s campaign sued Wednesday, asking the court to halt the counting of absentee ballots until an election inspector from each party was present to observe the process. A lawyer for Trump claimed that all ballot counting should have been stopped until Republican challengers were given the opportunity to review security video footage of each one of hundreds of drop boxes set up to receive ballots.
“All of this is simply an effort to stop the counting of ballots cast by Michigan voters who are fully entitled to vote and fully entitled to have their ballots counted by Michigan law,” Kevin Hamilton, the lawyer for the Democratic National Committee, said during oral arguments.
A judge dismissed another suit in Georgia, saying there was no evidence to back the Trump campaign’s claims. The campaign sought an injunction on Thursday afternoon, claiming the board is “intentionally violating” state law by not allowing poll watchers from the Trump campaign and the Republican party to monitor the counting of mail-in and absentee ballots.
U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond issued a one-sentence order after a hearing, saying he denied the order “in light of the parties’ agreement.”
A federal judge denied within hours Trump’s emergency request to halt the ballot count in Pennsylvania. The president’s team did notch some victories on Thursday when an appeals court ordered election officials in Philadelphia to allow campaign observers to get physically closer as they monitored the ballot-counting process.
Another Pennsylvania judge ordered state election officials to segregate certain ballots while considering the campaign’s claims that the state illegally extended the deadline for absentee voters to provide proof of identification.
No matter which way one looks at it, it is nearly impossible for Trump to win a second term unless he just plainly steals the election. No court in the United States will risk the public’s wrath by overturning fair and legal elections.
Donald Trump would like the States in which he is leading to stop counting the ballots. But in the states where he is losing, he wants the ballots counted. That is plain crazy. It does not work that way. All ballots that were filled out and postmarked by Tuesday, November 3, 2020, must be counted.
