Texas seeks to invalidate election results in four states with new lawsuit
Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan — where Joe Biden won — are named in the suit.
The Texas Attorney General is attempting to invalidate the election results in four key battleground states and halt presidential electors from confirming Joe Biden’s victory. On Tuesday (Dec. 8), Republican Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit directly to the Supreme Court claiming that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan should not be allowed to cast their votes because they “unconstitutionally” changed their voting procedures to allow for more mail-in ballots. Biden won the election in all four states.
In a statement, Paxton claimed that the mail-in process led to skewed results and asked the Supreme Court to extend the Electoral College’s deadline to solidify Biden’s win in order “to allow these investigations to be completed.”
“Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election,” Paxton said. “We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”
The 154-page complaint echoes many of the claims made by Trump and his reelection team. The president has previously tried to invalidate election results in several states where Biden was declared victorious.
Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs called the attorney general’s claims “false and irresponsible” when responding to the lawsuit in a statement.
“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,” Fuchs said.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel also dismissed the lawsuit as a “publicity stunt” and “not a serious legal pleading.”
“The erosion of confidence in our democratic system isn’t attributable to the good people of Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia or Pennsylvania but rather to partisan officials, like Mr. Paxton, who place loyalty to a person over loyalty to their country,” Nessel added, calling the suit “beneath the dignity” of Paxton’s office.
So far, Trump’s efforts to overturn election results through legal arguments have repeatedly failed. If the Supreme Court rejects Paxton’s request, the Electoral College will finalize Biden’s win on Monday (Dec. 14).