Trump’s Pennsylvania election trial alleges voter fraud in 2 counties

• The major new Trump campaign trial in Pennsylvania alleges that voter fraud potentially occurred in only two counties.
• The two, Fayette County and Luzerne County, voted for President Donald Trump.
• Local press reports cited by the lawsuit to support its claims report that local authorities are remedying irregularities ahead of polling day.
• The lawsuit offers no basis for the type of widespread voter fraud that Trump has repeatedly propagated without any evidence.
• Trump and other Republicans have filed more than a dozen lawsuits to challenge the 2020 election. Their main efforts are in Pennsylvania, which gave President-elect Joe Biden enough electoral votes to win the race.
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On Monday, the Trump campaign filed an 85-page retrial, asking a federal judge to prevent the Pennsylvania secretary of state from certifying the presidential election results.

If successful, the move could prevent President-elect Joe Biden from officially receiving the state’s 20 electoral votes, reducing his overall total but not likely to reverse the election results.

The lawsuit makes several allegations of irregularities in the way the votes were counted, citing poll observers and anonymous election observers. He also claims that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar gave inappropriate advice to election officials on the handling of mail ballots.

But the file cites only two specific cases of potential voter fraud, as Adam Klasfeld reported for Law & Order.

Both instances are in counties that voted strongly for Trump.

If votes are rejected in those areas, they could widen his loss margin in the state, rather than closing the 45,000-vote and counting gap between him and Biden.

And as press reports cited in the trial itself point out, authorities had already addressed all the issues that had opened the door to voter fraud long before election day. And the lawsuits offer no evidence of the type of widespread voter fraud that Trump has repeatedly alleged baseless.

• In Fayette County, according to the lawsuit, some voters received two ballots in the mail and some received ballots that had already been filled out. Lawyers representing the Trump campaign argue that both situations can lead to electoral fraud.

  He cites two local October newspaper articles to support his claims. One of the articles, on duplicate ballots, reports that the county electoral board had already resolved the issue. Contemporary reports on prefilled ballots in the county indicate that election officials have already grappled with this issue.

  President Donald Trump won nearly 67% of the vote in Fayette County, according to DDHQ data released by Insider.

• In Luzerne County, the lawsuit points out that a temporary seasonal election worker threw away nine military ballots that were in unmarked envelopes. It is not known whether these ballots were for the primary or general elections.

  To make this claim, the lawsuit cites a local newspaper article from September. The same article reports that the incident was under investigation and that the county had already changed its rules to avoid similar problems in the future.

  About 57% of voters in the county voted for Trump, according to DDHQ data released by Insider.

The lawsuit also does not cite Luzerne County or Fayette County as defendants in the lawsuit, but it goes after election councils for Allegheny, Center, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia counties – all based on anonymous observers and election observers alleging irregularities. Voters in all of those counties preferred Biden to Trump, DDHQ data shows.

Arguing that voter fraud overall is a significant risk in the state of Pennsylvania, attorneys cite only three cases in a 21-year period statewide. Election fraud is extremely rare, according to election experts. A 2020 analysis by the right-wing Heritage Foundation found that only six out of around 10 million votes resulted in a criminal conviction.

Arguments in the lawsuit regarding issues with how the mail-in ballots were handled “make no sense,” Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who studies electoral disputes, told Insider.

“In fact, they’re saying the mailed ballots are unconstitutional, which is ridiculous,” Briffault said. “In any event, any challenge to the PA’s postal voting procedures that was in the books before election day (and not imposed by a court) could and therefore should have been brought before the election , and therefore should be rejected for that reason alone. “

The Pennsylvania retrial is one of more than a dozen lawsuits the Trump campaign and other Republicans have launched across the country to undermine the 2020 election results. Pennsylvania, in particular, is important because his 20 electoral college votes secured Biden’s victory.

But even if the highly unlikely happens and Biden’s Pennsylvania electoral votes are uncertain because of this trial, Trump would still have to win Arizona, Georgia and Alaska to secure the 270 electoral votes needed. The incumbent should only win Alaska and its three electoral votes; Biden leads the other two states that have yet to call.

The Trump campaign is also seeking to join a Supreme Court case over the validity of mail-in ballots that arrived at ballot processing centers after election day. In any event that Trump and other Republicans have joined the state, it is unlikely that there will be enough polls in question to exceed Biden’s margin of 45,000 votes in the state.