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President Donald Trump continued to try to come out of his defeat in the 2020 presidential competition with a new federal lawsuit filed Wednesday evening in Wisconsin, the latest in a storm of lawsuits across the country that has until now encountered a resounding series of lawsuits. defeats.
The president called on the courts to respond within 48 hours to the case, which opposes the wide availability of postal voting for residents of the state – leeway given due to the risks associated with the coronavirus pandemic.
“Today’s federal lawsuit in Wisconsin reveals a seemingly coordinated effort to push a new form of voting over Wisconsin voters,” said Jenna Ellis, one of the president’s attorneys, adding that “the rules of the election was changed at the last minute and the guardrails against fraud were simultaneously lowered. “
Trump’s lawyers have yet to demonstrate that a fraud took place. Wisconsin was one of many states to expand postal voting in the 2020 election to address widespread health concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats have yet to respond to Wednesday’s filing, but one of Trump’s leading advocates in the fight against Trump’s legal blockade, Marc Elias, tweeted Wednesday evening that he was “tired of the repeated filings of frivolous lawsuits that obstruct the courts and deceive the public. This has to stop. “
Republicans in Washington have defended the president’s right to exhaust all legal avenues before accepting defeat, but pundits said the sustained legal push is unprecedented.
Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Voting Rights and Elections Program at the NYU School of Law, asked how tolerant the courts will be for Trump’s continued efforts to fight the 2020 election again before courts.
“The president and his supporters have abused the presumption of good faith to the point that the courts react quickly and clearly and lawyers no longer want to be involved,” she said.
Responding to a recent case, Judge Stephanos Bibas, a former Federalist Society member President Trump appointed to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017, wrote that “voters, not lawyers, choose President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections. “
The latest trial takes a different approach from that used in nearly three dozen previous cases filed by the Trump campaign and his supporters, most of which were dismissed by judges because they failed to sufficiently document the allegations of fraud.
This latest lawsuit never alleges that the fraud took place in Wisconsin – only that the risk of fraud has been increased by measures state officials have taken to address the global pandemic, such as increased use of drop boxes and postal ballots. The lawsuit alleges that the election was marred by “a willful disregard of thoughtful legislation designed to prevent absentee ballot fraud.”
The lawsuit also brings a proposed new remedy: to return the outcome of state competition to the Republican-controlled state legislature. The lawsuit asks the court to “immediately refer this matter to the Wisconsin Legislature for reconsideration … and determine the appropriate remedy for the established constitutional violation (s), including any impact on the allocation of presidential voters for the State of Wisconsin ”.
The lawsuit argues that voters were given access to mail ballots beyond what the law allowed, saying the global coronavirus pandemic was not a sufficient reason.
“There could be no reasonable or legal claim that the COVID-19 pandemic provided an excuse to avoid Wisconsin’s election laws,” he says.
Lawsuit says “blatant spoofing” allowed “thousands of ballots to be accepted on the basis of the inappropriate and inaccurate claim that the COVID-19 pandemic continued to justify large-scale failure to enforce the laws Wisconsin election. “
After losing the state to Democrat Joe Biden by more than 20,000 votes, the Trump campaign ordered recounts in two counties in Wisconsin. After paying $ 3 million for the recount process, Biden’s lead increased by 87 votes.
Prior to this case, state officials told ABC News they saw no way for lawmakers to overturn or invalidate the election results without a court ruling.
“I’m not aware there is a possibility for that,” said Meagan Wolfe, chief electoral officer at the Wisconsin Election Commission. “I think it would take court intervention for something like that to happen.”
But some Republican state lawmakers have already indicated their willingness to investigate complaints about the way the elections were conducted.
“I think it’s unlikely that we will find enough cases of fraud to nullify the election,” Wisconsin State Assembly Speaker Representative Robin Vos told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think it’s unlikely, but I don’t know. That’s why you’re having an investigation.”
Jeff Mandell, an attorney who heads Law Forward, a non-partisan, non-profit impact litigation firm in Wisconsin, said he saw no way for the Wisconsin State Legislature to overturn the state vote.
“Under Wisconsin law and federal law, Biden has won the most votes in the state of Wisconsin and he is entitled – and will get – all 10 electoral votes in the state of Wisconsin,” said Mandell. “And that’s what the law says pretty clearly. And there’s no getting around it.”
ABC News’s Kendall Karson and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
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