2020 elections legal battles: Will Trump lawsuits win him presidency?

As the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden is all set to be the 46th President of the United States, Trump has cried foul, claiming the rigging of votes in the key swing states. Based on the early results on the election night, Trump was leading the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina.

However, as the events unfolded and the election officials counted more mail-in ballots, Biden’s vote bank started to swell, and Trump lost the majority in all of these states except North Carolina.

This started a series of lawsuits filed by Trump’s campaign, as, according to some estimates, he filed more than 2000 lawsuits all over the country. Where is he filing these lawsuits?

Have lawsuits ever changed the US elections? Will the Trump lawsuits effectively turn these states red again, or will it be further chaos with no result? All of these questions require an in-depth analysis. Let’s have a look.

Where has the Trump campaign filed the lawsuits?

As Joe Biden’s victory became evident in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Trump decided to challenge the election results. According to Trump’s campaign, the key battleground states have been rigged by the men in blue one way or another.

While kicking off the legal battles, he said, “Our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld, and the rightful winner is seated.” He further added that “the American people are entitled to an honest election; that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots.”

Trump’s bid to challenge the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

Trump was leading Pennsylvania by more than 0.6 million votes on election night when he declared premature victory. In his bid to change the result of the 2020 presidential election, Trump tried to overturn the results of one of the hotly contested states, Pennsylvania.

As a matter of fact, Trump lost Pennsylvania primarily because of Philadelphia. Initially, Trump lawsuit was to stop the vote-counting in Pennsylvania, which was rejected immediately by the court.

Now, Trump is saying that the vote counting was done in the absence of the Republican observers, which increases the possibility of forged and manipulated votes.

The latest Trump lawsuit was filed on Monday by his campaign against Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State, Kathy Boockvar, and the boards of elections of some counties for the mismanaged election.

The Trump campaign is asking the court to issue an order to stop upcoming official statements regarding the win of Joe Biden in Pennsylvania. The main stipulations of Trump lawsuit in Pennsylvania are:

 

• The elections are not transparent.
• Unequal “curing” of the ballots was done.
• Concerns about the mail-in ballots that were received after November 3.

 

The Trump campaign also reiterated once again that the Republican campaign had “no meaningful access” to see the counting process.

 

Where does the situation stand in Pennsylvania now?

As the events unfolded in the state of Pennsylvania, Trump’s legal team admitted that the poll watchers were present in the room, but they were too far away from the counting place to see what was happening in real. Despite the president’s claims, Trump campaign lawyers also admitted that there were “non zero number of people in the room,” therefore weakening their own case.

However, the Trump campaign managed to get nearly a dozen more votes in the states as the court found a couple of discrepancies in the state.

One was in Fayette county, where two voters received already completed postal ballots, and the second one was in Luzerne County, where an election worker was found discarding nine military ballots, of which seven were in favor of Trump.

Apart from that, nothing was found, and nothing more is expected to be found in the days to come.

The legal battles in Arizona:

Arizona also became a battleground state in the 2020 elections as Democrats won this state unexpectedly. In the last twelve presidential elections, Democrats only won this state once, in 1996, and it was anticipated that Trump would be able to get the eleven electoral votes in Arizona easily.

However, a loss there pushed the GOP government to file a lawsuit in Maricopa County, Arizona. The Trump campaign and RNC alleged that the county “incorrectly rejected in-person votes” on election day.

The part of the lawsuit said that “when a machine detects an overvote on a ballot, poll workers should inform in-person voters of the error, and give them an opportunity to correct the issue. Instead, poll workers in Maricopa County pressed, and told voters to press, a green button to override the error. As a result, the machines disregarded the voter’s choices in the overvoted races.” The campaign opined that they want a manual inspection of the in-person rejected ballots.

 

Where does the situation stand in Arizona now?

The officials of the state of Arizona refuted the claims of Trump and said that out of 16,860 votes that were cast in-person on election day, only 180 votes were rejected. So even if Trump wins all of these 180 votes, he still cannot win the race in Arizona, as the winning margin of Joe Biden is much more than that.

The battle of Michigan and Trump lawsuit:

Michigan is another state in which Trump was leading when he announced victory on the election night. However, he lost the state after the full vote count. The legal battle in Michigan just took a new turn, as the Trump campaign filed a new lawsuit to stop the concerned authorities from giving official winning certification to Biden from Wayne County.

Before that, Trump filed a lawsuit in Michigan to stop ballot counting, as he was losing the lead over Biden. However, the courts rejected that Trump lawsuit immediately, and the vote count continued, resulting in Biden’s win.

 

Where does the situation stand in Michigan now?

The Michigan Trump lawsuit is also going to be rejected soon as Michigan court Judge Cynthia Stephens said that, “The Trump campaign’s lawsuit demonstrates either a failed attempt by plaintiffs to cobble together a legitimate claim or their clear lack of understanding of Michigan’s election laws.” She further added that “the court correctly described the campaign’s claims as nothing more than hearsay, and our office will ask the court to dismiss this meritless lawsuit. The will of voters is what matters in this election, and their ballots in Michigan have been counted in a transparent, fair, and accurate manner.”

 

The legal battle of Nevada under Trump lawsuit:

The six electoral votes of Nevada also became the bone of contention between the two presidential candidates as Trump filed a lawsuit in the state of Nevada claiming that more than 10,000 people voted in the election who are not the residents of Nevada anymore.

The Trump campaign further claimed that they had the names of 3062 people out of these 10,000 people. To further strengthen their case, Trump’s attorneys wrote a letter to the US Attorney General regarding voter fraud in Nevada. Another lawsuit by independent citizens backed by Trump’s campaign claimed that the signature verification was not done as it was supposed to be done in the state.

 

The battle of Wisconsin and Trump lawsuit:

Another Trump lawsuit is filed in Wisconsin for a recount, a state which Trump lost by a mere margin of almost twenty-thousand votes. The state laws allow the candidate to ask for a recount if he/she loses by a specific margin. So, Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking a recount in the state.

History of the successful lawsuits in the US:

US elections and lawsuits by the losing candidates are part and parcel of each other. While there are thousands of lawsuits filed in every election, only a few of them manage to change the election result.

In this regard, the presidential race of 2000 is worth remembering, as George Bush and Al-Gore came face to face in the most closely contested election in the history of the USA. As Florida became the battleground state, Bush managed to win the state by a tiny margin of 1800 votes.

Al Gore, who had already congratulated Bush for winning the presidency, decided to ask for a recount in the state. As the election officials initiated the recount, the lead of Bush started to drop and came down to less than 1000 votes. The news was panicking the Republican candidate, and he decided to file a lawsuit in the US Supreme Court to stop the recount.

The Supreme Court intervened in the election and ordered to stop the recount and declared Bush the winner of the US presidential elections. In the history of the United States, only this lawsuit has been effective in deciding the presidency.

Even the lawyers associated with this lawsuit have declared that Trump lawsuits will not win him anything. Barry Richard, the lead attorney for Bush in 2000, recently said that “I think the lawsuits filed so far (by Trump) are entirely without merit.”

 

Republicans and lawyers against Trump:

Trump is alone in his legal battles. Even the closest companions of Trump are against him in all of this process of Trump lawsuits. Some reports suggested that the first lady Melania Trump advised the president to concede to Joe Biden. The news is circulating that the first lady is going to separate her path from Donald Trump by taking a divorce.

The legal teams pursuing Trump lawsuits are also against the senseless lawsuits that Trump is filing one after the other. Trump is currently doing business with one of the most controversial law firms, Jones Day, that remained involved in defending Big Tobacco and Bin Laden’s family in the past. The lawyers at Jones Day opined that while fighting the Trump case to defend Trump lawsuits, they are undermining the US election system and hence the democracy of the country.

Similarly, the lawyers at another law firm, Porter, Wright, Morris, and Arthur, currently serving Trump, opined the same concerns against the lawsuits they are filling for Trump. Even one lawyer of this firm resigned in protest of Trump’s approach of filing these lawsuits.

Trump also knows this fact, and the internal reports have suggested that Trump is not happy with the opinions of these lawyers.

Trump Lawyers on the verge of losing their licenses:

The law firms representing Trump in all of these legal battles are vulnerable to legal actions against themselves. They are putting their careers at stake just to satisfy the ego of Donald Trump.

As these lawyers already know that filing these lawsuits is illegal and fraudulent, doing so will land them in troubled waters. According to the laws, if someone wastes court time by intentionally filing a fraudulent lawsuit, a legal inquiry can be initiated against them, and this is what can happen to Trump’s lawyers.

As these law firms have already stated that they know that Trump lawsuits are illegal, any action by the concerned authorities can make their legal licenses null and void. Therefore the careers of these lawyers will be done and dusted as a result of the pursuit of the fraudulent lawsuits.

 

Will Trump lawsuits be able to win a second term for him in the White House?

The probability of winning the second term for Trump is at an all-time low today. Barack Obama won Wisconsin by a hefty margin of more than 2 lac votes in 2012.

However, Trump managed to flip the state in his favor in the 2016 presidential elections by a mere margin of 0.7%. Upon the request of the Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein, the recount was initiated in the state, resulting in further increasing the votes of Donald Trump by 135.

As a matter of fact, a couple of hundred votes can shift on either side in a recount. However, a major shift is unlikely, and Joe Biden will once again carry the state. Besides, the Trump campaign has to pay almost $3.5 million for the recount, for which he has already started collecting funds on his social media outlets.

Joe Biden won Georgia by a small margin of 12000 votes, and a recount is going to take place in the state. The likelihood of the state flipping in favor of Trump is greater than that of Wisconsin, but still, it seems impossible.

However, if Trump wins this state in a recount, it will give him reasons to raise further questions on the credibility of the election. Even if Trump manages to win Georgia in a recount, it will not help him win the second term as Biden is leading in Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Trump’s case in the state of Pennsylvania is not a strong one, either. Trump already knew that Philadelphia would be a nightmare for him; that’s why he said in the first presidential debate that “bad things happen in Philadelphia.” Any Trump lawsuit in Pennsylvania will be a sheer waste of resources as it will just push the United States into the dead-end tunnel.

As Joe Biden is all set to win the presidency, voices from the Republican circles are also coming against Trump. Republican Senator Mitt Romney has bashed Trump for calling elections rigged, and he claimed that these allegations would endanger the democratic culture of the United States.

Perhaps the better approach for Donald Trump is to concede to Biden and respect the peaceful transition of power to avoid any potential riots in the country, which have already started in many states.