President Donald Trump has been urging lower court judges to rule quickly in the cases so he can file appeals before the Electoral College meets on Monday and casts Wisconsin's 10 votes for Biden.
Democrat Joe Biden won Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes, a margin of 0.6% that withstood a Trump-requested recount in the state's two largest counties. Trump asked in the state lawsuit to disqualify more than 221,000 votes in the Democratic strongholds of Dane and Milwaukee counties.
Trump did not challenge any ballots cast in counties he won.
Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek ruled Friday that the rules and guidelines of the election were followed during the recount. He said there was no evidence to back up Trump's claims.
A court just affirmed certification of Biden's victory in Wisconsin
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) December 11, 2020
Trump & GOP allies have now lost 56 cases
It's completely insane Trump, 18 GOP AGs & 106 House Republicans still trying to overturn election resultshttps://t.co/sBr2jG8xDX
"The bottom line here is that the court should do everything to ensure that the will of the voters prevail," the judge said.
Monster case
In what may have been the single biggest attempt for Trump to reverse the verdict, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton put in a motion on 11 December with the U.S. Supreme Court to block the battleground states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, from casting "unlawful and constitutionally tainted votes" in the Electoral College. The case is supported by 106 House Republicans in 17 states.
In the lawsuit, Paxton, who himself is under investigation by the FBI for bribery, claims that pandemic-era changes to election procedures in those states violated federal law and asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block the states from voting in the Electoral College on 14 December.
On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected that case as well.
It looks like we have a new leader in the “craziest lawsuit filed to purportedly challenge the election” category:
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 8, 2020
The State of Texas is suing Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin *directly* in #SCOTUS.
(Spoiler alert: The Court is *never* going to hear this one.) pic.twitter.com/2L4GmdCB6I
The Paxton case is one of the last in a long series. The Case Tracker of the Election Law project at Ohio State University currently lists 51 cases where Trump attacks election results in different states, consisting of thousands upon thousands of pages with legal texts. Until now, he’s won one, but the vast majority was thrown out.
As most of the states now have acknowledged the election results by signing their individual state Certificates of Ascertainment, State Electors will vote for the president and the vice-president on 14 December.
Only on 6 January 2021, when Congress meets in a joint session to count the electoral votes, the results will be official - but until then, Trump is likely to continue his efforts to turn the tables.
