Some of the suits filed on Trump’s behalf appear to be hastily thrown together, with spelling errors (“ballet” for “ballot”), procedural mistakes and little to back up their claims. Judges have been skeptical.
In Michigan, Judge Cynthia Stephens dismissed one filing as “inadmissible hearsay within hearsay.” When Trump’s lawyers appealed, the next court kicked the filing back as “defective.”
The campaign has so far scored just one small victory, allowing their observers to stand a little closer to election workers processing the mail-in ballots in Philadelphia. But the litigation keeps coming, usually centered on accusations from partisan poll watchers, who have no auditing role in the election, that something untoward may have happened, without evidence to back it up.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., insists the president is “100% within his rights” to look into fraud allegations and pursue his legal options. Attorney General William Barr has authorized the Justice Department to investigate “clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities.”
Either way, experts doubt the suits can reverse the outcome in a single state, let alone the election. Trump aides and allies have privately admitted as much, suggesting the challenges are designed more to stoke his base.