«In the political realm, we see accusations of massive voter fraud. But in court, if you look at the cases, it’s totally different.»
U.S. President Donald Trump’s litigation campaign to discredit President-elect Joe Biden’s victory is very unlikely to change the outcome of the election and is mostly about politics and fundraising, according to election law experts. Trump has repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He claims he won the Nov.3 election and accused Democrats of trying to “steal” it from him. The Trump campaign has said it is fighting for a “free, fair, and fully transparent election in which every legal ballot is counted and every illegal ballot is not counted.” But the lawsuits do not reflect this rhetoric, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “In the political realm, we see accusations of massive voter fraud. But in court, if you look at the cases, it’s totally different,” Levinson said. WHAT DO THE CASES SAY? Since Election Day, the Trump campaign has brought suits in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia. A common allegation in many of them is that Republican poll watchers were denied proper access to vote counting sites in Democratic-leaning areas. The most sweeping cases, filed this week in Michigan and Pennsylvania, seek to halt officials in those states from certifying Biden as the winner. In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign alleged that a lack of observer access, combined with inadequate verification of voter identities and other factors, made mail-in voting untrustworthy.
