Pennsylvania officials told a federal appeals court on Tuesday it should reject a bid by U.S. President Donald Trumpâs campaign to block President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of the battleground state, according to a court filing.
Lawyers for Trumpâs campaign have asked the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the âeffectâ of the stateâs results. The results were certified earlier on Tuesday, clearing the way for Biden to receive the stateâs 20 electoral votes and dimming Trumpâs long-shot quest to change the outcome of the election.
While Trumpâs administration begins the process of formally transitioning the government to Biden, Trumpâs campaign is appealing a decision made by a lower court judge, who rejected claims of inconsistent treatment of mail-in ballots. Some counties told voters they could fix defective ballots, such as a missing âsecrecy envelope,â while others did not.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann dismissed the case, saying he had âno authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens.â
In appealing the decision, the Trump campaign said it was focusing on the ânarrowâ question of whether Brann improperly refused to let it amend the lawsuit a second time.
The campaign wants to add back allegations it dropped from the case, including a claim that its due process rights were violated.
âThe Trump Campaign seeks to needlessly draw out this futile legislation by asserting the right to reinstate meritless claims they excised and abandoned in the District Court in a well-publicized effort to undermine this election and, ultimately, democracy itself,â lawyers for four of the counties involved in the lawsuit wrote in a court filing.
The campaign on Monday denied trying to disenfranchise the stateâs 6.8 million voters and said it wanted an expert to âsampleâ 1.5 million mail ballots to determine how many were defective.
Those defective ballots, the Trump campaign said, should be âdeducted from Bidenâs votes, which may change the result of the election.â
Biden received nearly 81,000 more votes than Trump in the state.
Even if Trump was able to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, he would need to invalidate the results in two other key states to change the outcome of the election.
âTrump did not succeed in Pennsylvania and he will not succeed anywhere else,â Bob Bauer, an adviser to Biden, said in a statement on Tuesday.
If the campaign loses its appeal, it could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its case.
(Reporting by Makini Brice and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Chris Reese and Tom Brown)
