Texas Contests Results in Four Battleground States

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Avi Werde

Photo of the Texas flag next to the American flag. Photo Credit: Photo via unsplash under the creative commons license.

Mahrshi Brahmbhatt

 

Ken Paxton, Texas’s Attorney General, announced on Tuesday that he is suing the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to invalidate their election results. In his suit, Paxton argues that the four states violated federal law by going through with election procedure changes brought on by the Coronavirus. Based on those conditions, Paxton is asking the United States Supreme Court to block those states from voting in the Electoral College. According to The Texas Tribune, “Paxton claimed that these changes allowed for voter fraud to occur … and said the court should push back a Dec. 14 deadline by which states must appoint their presidential electors.” This lawsuit was filed on an important date in the certification process, as Tuesday, Dec. 8, is the safe harbor threshold. After that day, Congress is now compelled to accept the certified results from the states.

Given the previous resolutions to the suits that President Donald Trump and his allies had filed, this new suit doesn’t seem likely to succeed. This case has already been dubbed a longshot by legal experts. According to CNBC, Rick Hasen, an election law expert from California, has called the case “utter garbage” on his legal blog. Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University, has said “I don’t think the Supreme Court will have interest in this.”

The states which Paxton targeted have already given their reactions to the suit. Jordan Fuch, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, stated, as per CNBC, that: “Texas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring forward a single person who this happened to. That’s because it didn’t happen.” Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Attorney General, has called Paxton’s decision “a public stunt, not a serious legal proceeding.” The Attorney General of Wisconison, Josh Kaul, has said that the case is “genuinely embarrassing.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbot has signed support for the lawsuit, saying that the case “tries to accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process. The United States of America needs that.” Whether this lawsuit can succeed or not remains to be seen.