Trump knocks US Supreme Court's door against election results

President Donald Trump has approached the US Supreme Court against the results of last month's presidential election, which he alleges were rigged in favour of his Democratic challenger and President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump, a Republican, has been making unsubstantiated claims about widespread voter fraud and electoral malpractice in the presidential polls. State election officials have denied any such large-scale fraud.

Biden received 306 electoral votes, more than the required 270 of the 538 Electoral College votes in the November 3 presidential election.

Trump on Wednesday moved to intervene in a Supreme Court case brought by the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton that demands that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be invalidated.

“We will soon be learning about the word “courage”, and saving our country. I received hundreds of thousands of legal votes more, in all of the Swing States, than did my opponent. ALL Data taken after the vote says that it was impossible for me to lose, unless FIXED!” Trump said in a tweet, soon after which his campaign announced that he has filed a petition in the Supreme Court.

"Trump, in his personal capacity as a candidate for re-election as President of the United States, moved on Wednesday to intervene in the Texas v Pennsylvania, et. al. action at the United States Supreme Court," his campaign said.

A day earlier, the State of Texas filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in key battleground states that would tip the scales in his favour.

The Trump campaign said that the president intervened because his rights as a candidate are affected by the Defendant States' failure to follow and enforce state election laws during the 2020 election.

"I'm honoured that the President asked me to represent him in this matter. I think his intervention in this case strengthens an already very strong original action by the state of Texas," said John Eastman, Counsel of Record for Trump.

“President Trump is fully committed to ensuring election integrity and fulfilling his oath to defend and protect the United States Constitution against state officials' misconduct and violations of law that irredeemably compromised this election,” said Jenna Ellis, Senior Legal Adviser to the Trump 2020 Campaign and Attorney to President Trump. The Trump campaign has yet to produce concrete evidence of corruption or widespread fraud in court.

Attorney General William Barr has said his department has yet to see proof that widespread fraud occurred that would change the outcome.

“We look forward to the Supreme Court resolving these important issues of election integrity that ultimately affect all Americans, and providing a remedy to the corruption that occurred,” she added.

As many as 17 Republican attorney generals joined Trump and the State of Texas in challenging the election results in the Supreme Court. The brief states that the Texas “Bill of Complaint raises constitutional questions of great public importance that warrant this Court’s review.” On Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Paxton told the Supreme Court that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 general election.

The battleground states flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted, the Republican official alleged.

“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together. Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election,” Paxton said.

“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections,” he said.

“Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error,” Paxton said.

The lawsuit filed by Trump said that the public record demonstrates a ballot-counting process replete with chaos, confusion, and partisan bias.

“These things on their own do not create a constitutional crisis. A true constitutional crisis arises when non-legislative officials seek to change the rules of the game in a manner that is contrary to the dictates of the Constitution,” it said.

The Texas case has largely been dismissed by legal experts as unserious and a publicity stunt.

The Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will hear the case. The high court dismissed a case a day earlier brought by Pennsylvania Republicans to nullify Biden's victory in the state.

But the Texas case has become a rallying cry for Trump and his allies. 

Image credits: AP