Trump files new election challenge in Michigan; Georgia announces recount

President Donald Trump's campaign on Wednesday took another step in its long-shot legal technique to upend his election loss with a Michigan lawsuit while Georgia announced a recount and President-elect Joe Biden done laying the building blocks of his administration.

The Republican president's team visited federal court to attempt to block Michigan, a U.S. Midwestern battleground declare that he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in media projections, from certifying the Nov 3 election results. Trump trailed by roughly 148,000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points, in unofficial Michigan vote totals, according to Edison Research.

The lawsuit made allegations of voting misconduct, with the give attention to the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County, which include Detroit. Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said the Trump campaign was promoting false claims to erode public confidence in the election.

"It generally does not change the reality: Michigan's elections were conducted fairly, securely, transparently, and the results are a precise reflection of the will of the people," Rollow said in a statement.

Biden last Saturday clinched victory in the election as he won a number of battleground states to exceed the 270 electoral votes needed in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines who wins the presidency. Biden also was winning the national popular vote by a lot more than 5 million votes with a few states still counting votes.

Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of looking to undermine public rely upon the U.S. electoral system and delegitimize Biden's victory through unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud as the president, the first White House incumbent to lose a re-election bid since 1992, tries to hold on to power.

During the campaign, Trump had refused to commit to a relaxing transfer of power.

Biden became the election winner even without Georgia considered. He held a lead of just over 14,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points, in Georgia, a southern declare that Democrats have not carried in a presidential election since 1992.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand recount of most ballots cast in the state's 159 counties. He said it had been expected to get started this week and would be finished with time to certify the results by a Nov 20 deadline.

The scale of the endeavor is in a way that if counting occurred night and day, officials would need to count more than 23,000 ballots one hour in the rest of the nine days.

"It'll take every bit of the time that people have left, for certain. It's a major lift," Raffensperger told a news conference.

Biden met with advisers on Wednesday who are helping him prepare to take office on Jan 20.

REPUBLICAN SUPPORT

Trump has declined to concede the election to Biden, instead lodging a flurry of lawsuits in pivotal states to attempt to back up his unsupported claims of widespread voting fraud.

Prominent Republican lawmakers and other Trump allies have backed the president's strategy, saying he gets the to contest the results. The Michigan suit was filed 1 day after Biden called Trump's failure to concede an "embarrassment."

"The more Republican leaders kowtow, the more Trump believes he's still in control and the less likely he'll do what normal presidents do: make a gracious concession speech; fully cooperate with the president-elect in a smooth transition process; and validate the election process itself by joining his successor at the Jan. 20 inauguration," John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser turned critic, wrote within an judgment piece in the Washington Post.

Judges have tossed out many of the Trump lawsuits, and legal authorities say the litigation has scant chance of changing the results. Biden on Wednesday widened his lead in key states as vote-counting continued, including Pennsylvania.

The lawsuits are believed part of a broader effort to find evidence to back up Trump's fraud allegations and forge a case that could end up at the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority including three justices appointed by him.

One Republican strategist with ties to the White House said the legal maneuvers and push for recounts were aimed at finding evidence to support Trump's claims.

The strategist, like many others close to the effort, acknowledged the Trump campaign faced an uphill struggle.

"They're looking at throwing up a hundred Hail Marys," he said, utilizing a football term discussing a desperation pass towards the end of a game.

Trump placed a memorial wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, his first public appearance apart from two golf outings since Biden was projected the winner.

While Trump made no remarks at the cemetery, in Twitter posts on Wednesday he kept up his unsubstantiated narrative of voter fraud, discussing "a mountain of corruption & dishonesty" while assailing pollsters.

The election outcome in a tiny number of states remained undecided with Trump holding a lead in NEW YORK and Biden ahead in Arizona in addition to Georgia. Recounts are unlikely to improve the outcomes.

To stay in office, Trump would have to win all three undecided states plus overturn the results in one or even more states in Biden's column, a highly unlikely prospect.