Mr Trump and his allies have claimed that their observers were not allowed inside
US presidential election 2020
Trump clings to courtroom hopes despite lawsuit losses
Legal challenges to election result continue although some already rejected by judges
A Trump supporter protests outside the central counting board in Detroit on Thursday © DAvid Goldman/AP
Kadhim Shubber in Washington YESTERDAY
Even after Joe Biden secured victory in the US presidential election on Saturday,
Donald Trump has continued to dispute the result and vowed to keep filing
lawsuits despite already seeing a run of losses in the courts.
Mr Trump’s legal claims have been met with scepticism, with judges noting a lack
of evidence for the president’s allegations of fraud and irregularities.
But he faces a steeper challenge — Mr Biden’s margin of victory in key
battleground states is probably too large to be undone through the courts, even if
Mr Trump could prove his case.
Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuits.
Where has the president filed cases?
The Trump campaign fired off lawsuits in several states that hung in the balance at
various times after polling day. He had some success on minor procedural
questions but was rejected repeatedly on claims of improprieties.
In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign succeeded in persuading a state court to
allow its observers to stand closer to the vote counting.
the vote count at all. This is false. Trump campaign lawyers have admitted in court
they had access.
But in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, lawsuits either filed or hyped by the
campaign were rejected for presenting no serious evidence of the issues they
claimed.
A Nevada judge said on Friday: “Why do I grant extraordinary relief if you don’t
have evidence to show the likelihood of success on the merits?”
Have those defeats deterred the president?
In spite of these setbacks, Mr Trump has continued to file lawsuits. On Saturday,
his campaign said it had filed a lawsuit in Arizona claiming that potentially
“thousands” of voters had been disenfranchised.
The case included previously debunked claims that ballots marked with Sharpie
pens were not counted in Maricopa County. County officials have said this is not
true.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of California,
Irvine, said Mr Trump may be continuing to launch legal claims to “further push
his excuse for losing as due to fraud” or “to rile up his base and delegitimise the
Biden presidency”.
“He might be doing it because he actually believes fraud cost him the election,” Mr
Hasen said, adding: “We have seen no evidence of fraud so far that could
conceivably affect the election results.”
What about recounts?
In some states, there is a possibility of a recount because of the close vote margins.
The Trump campaign has said it wants a recount in Wisconsin, while Georgia
officials have said they are planning a recount.
Past US recounts have typically altered vote totals by only hundreds of ballots. Mr
Biden is leading Mr Trump in Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes and in Georgia by
around 10,000.
The Associated Press on Friday found that in 31 US statewide recounts since 2000,
the result has only been changed in three cases where the initial margin was fewer
than 300 votes.
Has anything reached the Supreme Court?
None of the new cases filed by the Trump campaign have worked their way up to
the Supreme Court yet, but there is an outstanding case regarding Pennsylvania
mail ballot deadlines that has seen some activity in recent days.

The case is about whether mail ballots sent by polling day, November 3, but
received up to three days later can be counted or not. The Pennsylvania Supreme
Court had issued the extension earlier this year but it was challenged by
Republicans in the state.

Before the election the US Supreme Court declined to immediately strike down the
extension but the case remains live.

The Trump campaign moved to intervene in the case this week and on Saturday
one of the court’s justices, Samuel Alito, ordered Pennsylvania to follow previous
guidance issued by state officials to separate such ballots from those that arrived
by November 3.

Even if Republicans prevail on the legal arguments, it is unclear that the Supreme
Court would throw out ballots received after polling day or that doing so would
alter the outcome of the race.

Mr Biden has a lead of more than 40,000 votes in Pennsylvania and state election
officials have said the number of late-arriving ballots is likely to be significantly
smaller than that.

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