The U.S. doesn’t hold one presidential election, but many, and each one must be challenged individually. As Trump would have to overturn the election results in at least two and more likely three states, it would take several successful lawsuits, each fought on its own technicalities and under different sets of state laws.
In each state, there are two avenues a losing candidate can pursue. First, he can challenge the certified result in what’s called a “contest.” This is a statutory procedure under which a candidate can ask a judge to throw out the election results, but he must have some grounds to do so, and evidence to prove his contentions. If the contestant alleges fraud, he must not only prove fraud, but also prove it changed the result.
The other avenue is to ask courts to remedy specific violations of election laws. Such lawsuits need not await certification; they can be filed at any time. All of Trump’s lawsuits filed to date fall in this category, because no state has certified its election results yet. Often, these lawsuits potentially affect small batches of ballots, or the count in a single county, so they rarely if ever affect the result, but can be used to narrow the margin between the candidates in order, for example, to bring a state within recount range.
Here’s an example of this type of lawsuit:
“A group of Republican attorneys general on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case challenging a lower court ruling that extended Pennsylvania’s deadline to receive mail-in ballots. In separate filings, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, joined by nine others including from Texas and Louisiana, and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the justices should overturn the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and delivered through Friday to be counted.”
First, it’s hard to see how any of these other states, or their attorney generals, have any standing in this lawsuit, as this is a Pennsylvania matter. I suppose they argue the voters of their states are affected if Pennsylvania does something illegal to change the national result. But if that’s the case, then the attorney generals of Washington, California, New York, and other “blue” states would be entitled to sue if, say, the GOP-controlled Pennsylvania legislature were to substitute a slate of Trump electors for the Biden slate chosen by Pennsylvania’s voters.
Anyway,
“Pennsylvania officials had already ordered county election boards to separate mail-in ballots from other ballots in case the challenge was successful, a directive that Justice Samuel Alito on Friday also ordered the counties to comply with. … [But] if the court were to take up the case and rule for Republicans, it likely would not affect the final vote in Pennsylvania, as the case only concerns mail-in ballots received after Nov. 3. State officials have indicated that late-arriving ballots are a tiny proportion of the overall vote.”
In other words, there aren’t enough of those ballots to erase Biden’s lead in the state. But, as stated above, if it narrows Biden’s lead, that would make it easier to change the result with a recount, although that wouldn’t be guaranteed (and likely would still be a longshot). And flipping Pennsylvania to Trump wouldn’t be enough to change the election result, because Biden would still have more than 270 electoral votes.
The same, or a very similar, story will be repeated everywhere else Trump files election lawsuits. These lawsuits, along with recounts and other schemes, could be part of an overall strategy to chip away at Biden’s electoral votes. But they probably aren’t. At this point there’s little sign in the Republican camp of a coordinated strategy.
More likely, the real purpose is fundraising, to get money to pay off the Trump campaign’s debts. Yes, the self-funded billionaire businessman’s campaign is broke and in hock, just as the “businessman” himself is. In the end, it’s all about money, not changing the election results, which are out of reach anyway:
“Legal experts said the cases the Trump campaign is bringing are narrow in scope and unlikely to change the outcome.”
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