Trump loses election lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan, drops Arizona case
Judges have dealt double blows to President Trump's longshot attempts to disqualify enough ballots to win the presidency.
On Friday, a Michigan judge rejected an injunction claiming election irregularities were rampant in Detroit's Wayne County. Trump supporters' lawsuit claimed the vote count was plagued by fraud, but Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny said the suit didn't prove he should halt certification of the vote or order it to be audited, Bloomberg reports.
Also on Friday, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia rejected Republicans' attempt to toss out 9,300 mail-in ballots that arrived late, CBS Pittsburgh reports. The suit was filed by legal group Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, which withdrew from representing Trump's campaign earlier Friday.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
And as President-elect Joe Biden's lead grew in Arizona, the Trump campaign dropped its legal challenges throughout Maricopa County, CNBC reports. "The tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors," Trump's campaign said in a Friday filing. Biden's leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia are even wider than his edge in Arizona.
Trump did secure a small win Thursday when a Pennsylvania court ruled election officials couldn't count a small number of mail ballots from people who failed to provide proper identification, as Pennsylvania's secretary of state didn't have the authority to extend that deadline in the first place. The combined number of ballots Trump's campaign disputed in Pennsylvania would be far from enough to negate Biden's margin.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
Grok in the crosshairs as EU launches deepfake porn probeIN THE SPOTLIGHT The European Union has officially begun investigating Elon Musk’s proprietary AI, as regulators zero in on Grok’s porn problem and its impact continent-wide
-
‘But being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why have homicide rates reportedly plummeted in the last year?Today’s Big Question There could be more to the story than politics
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
-
Iran’s government rocked by protestsSpeed Read The death toll from protests sparked by the collapse of Iran’s currency has reached at least 19
