Trump sues in 3 states, laying ground for contesting outcome

President Donald Trump's campaign filed lawsuits on Wednesday (Nov 4) in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, laying the groundwork for contesting battleground states as he slipped behind Democrat Joe Biden in the hunt for the 270 Electoral College votes had a need to win the White House.

The brand new filings, joining existing Republican legal challenges in Pennsylvania and Nevada, demand better access for campaign observers to spots where ballots are being processed and counted, and absentee ballot concerns, the campaign said. However, at one Michigan location involved the Associated Press observed poll watchers from both sides monitoring on Wednesday.

The AP called Michigan for Democrat Joe Biden on Wednesday. Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia are undecided.

The Trump campaign is wanting to intervene in a Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court that handles whether ballots received up to three days following the election could be counted, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said.

The actions reveal an emerging legal strategy that the president had signalled for weeks, namely that he'd attack the integrity of the voting process in states where in fact the result could mean his defeat.

His campaign also announced that it could require a recount in Wisconsin, circumstances the AP called for Biden on Wednesday afternoon. Campaign manager Bill Stepien cited “irregularities in a number of Wisconsin counties”, without providing specifics.

Biden said on Wednesday the count should continue in all states, adding, “No one’s going to take our democracy away from us - not now, never."

His campaign didn’t immediately touch upon the brand new lawsuits in Michigan or Pennsylvania over access for observers. Nonetheless it has been seeking donations for what it really is calling the “Biden Fight Fund”.

“Our legal team is standing by, and they'll prevail,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote in a fundraising email to supporters previously Wednesday.

Election officials continued to count votes in the united states, the normal process on your day following voting. Unlike in previous years, states were contending with an avalanche of mail ballots driven by fears of voting in person during a pandemic.

At least 103 million people voted early, either by mail or in-person, representing 74 % of the total votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.

Every election, results reported on election night are unofficial and the counting of ballots extends past Election Day. Mail ballots normally take additional time to verify and count. This season, because of the many mail ballots and a close race, results were expected to take longer.

The Trump campaign said it really is calling for a momentary halt in the counting in Michigan and Pennsylvania until it is given “meaningful” access in numerous locations and allowed to review ballots that already have been opened and processed.

The AP's Michigan call for Biden came after the suit was filed. The president is ahead in Pennsylvania but his margin is shrinking as more mailed ballots are counted.

There were no reports of fraud or any kind of ballot concerns out of Pennsylvania. The state had 3.1 million mail-in ballots that take time to count and an order allows them to be received and counted until Friday if they're postmarked by Nov 3.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a CNN interview the lawsuit was “more a political document than a legal document.”

“There is transparency in this process. The counting has been going on. There are observers observing this counting, and the counting will continue,” he said.

The Michigan lawsuit claims Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was allowing absentee ballots to be counted without teams of bipartisan observers and also challengers. She is accused of undermining the “constitutional right of all Michigan voters ... to take part in fair and lawful elections”. Michigan Democrats said the suit was a longshot.

Poll watchers from both sides were plentiful on Wednesday at one major polling place in question - the TCF Center in Detroit, the Associated Press observed. They checked in at a table close to the access to the convention centre’s Hall E and strolled among the tables where ballot processing was occurring.

In some instances, they arrived en masse and huddled together for an organization discussion before fanning out to the floor. Uniformed Detroit police officers were on hand to make sure everyone was behaving.

Mark Brewer, a former state Democratic chairman who said he was observing the Detroit vote counting as a volunteer lawyer, said he previously been at the TCF arena all day and had talked with other people who had been there days gone by few days. He said Republicans was not denied access.

“This is actually the best absentee ballot counting procedure that Detroit has ever endured. They are counting ballots very efficiently, regardless of the obstructing tactics of the Republicans.”

GOP legal representatives had already launched legal challenges involving absentee votes in Pennsylvania and Nevada, contesting local decisions that could undertake national significance in the close election.

In a single appeal to a Pennsylvania appellate court, the Trump campaign complained that one of its representatives was prevented from seeing the writing on mail-in ballots that were being opened and processed in Philadelphia. A judge in Philadelphia dismissed it, saying that poll observers are directed to observe, not audit.

The Georgia lawsuit filed in Chatham County essentially asks a judge to guarantee the state laws are being followed on absentee ballots. Campaign officials said these were considering peppering twelve other counties around the state with similar claims around absentee ballots.

Trump, addressing supporters at the White House in early stages Wednesday, talked about taking the undecided race to the Supreme Court. Though it had been unclear what he meant, his comments evoked a reprise of the court’s intervention in the 2000 presidential election that ended with a decision effectively handing the presidency to George W Bush.

But there are essential differences from 2000 and they already were on display. In 2000, Republican-controlled Florida was the critical state and Bush clung to a little lead. Democrat Al Gore asked for a recount and the Supreme Court stopped it.

For some election law experts, calling for the Supreme Court to intervene now seemed premature, if not rash.

A case would need to come to the court from circumstances where the outcome would determine the election’s winner, Richard Hasen, a University of California, Irvine, law professor, wrote on the Election Law blog. The difference between your candidates’ vote totals would have to be smaller compared to the ballots on the line in the lawsuit.

“Around this moment (though things can transform) it generally does not appear that either condition will be met,” Hasen wrote.

Ohio State University election law professor Edward Foley wrote on Twitter Wednesday: “The valid votes will be counted. (The Supreme Court) will be involved only if there have been votes of questionable validity that would make a difference, which can not be the case. The rule of law will determine the state winner of the popular vote in each state. Let the rule of law work.”

Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer said if Trump goes to the high court, “he will be in for one of the very most embarrassing defeats a president has ever suffered by the best court in the land”.

The justices could opt to step into the dispute over the three-day extension for absentee ballots if indeed they prove crucial to the results in Pennsylvania.

Even a tiny number of contested votes could matter if circumstances determines the winner of the election and the gap between Trump and Biden is small.