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Trump Campaign files lawsuits in several key battleground states

Posted at 5:57 PM, Nov 06, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-06 17:57:12-05

As several key battleground states continue to count ballots, lawsuits in nearly every one of those states have been filed by the Trump campaign.

Currently, a lawsuit in Georgia and one in Michigan have been denied.

There are 3 more lawsuits that have been filed — one in Pennsylvania, one in Nevada and another in Arizona.

The Georgia lawsuit asked election officials in Chatham County to put aside ballots received after Election Day. The judge, in that case, said there was no evidence that the ballots listed in the litigation were received after Election Day, which is why it was denied.

The lawsuit in Michigan asked the state to stop counting votes until a court could enforce a rule to allow representatives from the Trump Campaign to watch ballots being opened and counted because they claimed poll watchers were denied close up access.

The judge dismissed that because most of the votes had been counted already, and because of a lack of evidence and detail from the Trump Campaign.

"The court is not going to stop states from their initial election count and it just seems like he [the President] is reaching for straws and is casting aspersions on the democratic process,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a Constitutional Professor of Law at Stetson University.

She says at some point, there could be ramifications to these lawsuits.

“If they keep on doing these types of shenanigans, the lawyers themselves could be subject to sanctions so this all seems like it’s making a lot of noise and it’s making a lot of headlines but it’s not going to make a lot of law," Torres-Spelliscy said.

ABC News Reports on Thursday, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in federal court in Clark County that alleges "lax procedures for authenticating mail-in ballots over 3,000 instances of ineligible individuals casting ballots." The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief directing poll workers to manually check all ballot signatures and to allow for "meaningful access" to ballot counting.

A second lawsuit filed by the republican party in Nevada wants Clark County to stop using its signature verification machines. But the attorney general in Nevada says courts have already found no evidence of fraud.

In a statement, he writes:

"While the lawsuit was announced yesterday at 8:30am, Plaintiffs did not file the "emergency" lawsuit for nearly 12 hours. Plaintiffs requested a Temporary Restraining Order against the use of a ballot machine used in Clark County, among other items. While it repeats several of the same claims, this suit is a separate action previously denied by Nevada's First Judicial District Court Judge James Wilson.

While the Attorney General's Office normally does not comment on pending litigation, I feel compelled to dispel the misinformation being circulated to undermine the public's trust in our election.

To all Nevada voters: rest assured that the State of Nevada takes its responsibility to voters seriously, and is using every available resource to ensure the safety and security of this election. Courts have already found no evidence of fraud. Nevada's election officials will count all legal votes, as is the normal course of action in every election.

In Arizona, ABC News reports, The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee filed a motion Thursday to intervene in an Arizona lawsuit that raises issues with the use of Sharpies on ballots in Maricopa County and other regions of the state. The case was brought by a woman who claims that a voting machine failed to properly read her vote after she was provided a Sharpie to fill out her ballot at her polling place.

A judge ordered parties in the case to decide on a path forward and present it to her on Friday.

In Pennsylvania, a lawsuit claims the secretary of state illegally extended its deadline to fix any mistakes regarding I.D requirements from Nov. 9-11.

ABC News says the judge has not ruled if the deadline should be moved back to Nov. 9 but wants the ballots segregated, and ordered that the state count them in the event she decides they are invalid.