Backed by his re-election campaign, Trump has initiated more than a dozen legal actions that seek to invalidate votes, undermine tabulation procedures and, ultimately, question results in the wake of his loss to Joe Biden. Last Saturday, major news outlets, including the Associated Press, named Biden the election’s projected winner. The weekend’s announcement came shortly after the AP called Pennsylvania for Biden, giving Trump’s Democratic opponent the necessary electoral votes to secure the presidency.
The Trump campaign was already pursuing legal actions in various states when Biden became the presumed president-elect. Lawsuits predominantly targeted ballot counting practices in key swing states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, disputing deadlines, observer permissions and tabulation methods. Ballot tallies showed a majority of voters in each of those states supported Biden’s election, but Trump endeavored to contradict the numbers.
Acknowledging that early ballot counts from some states that Biden eventually won placed Trump in the lead, the president claimed that those votes tallied later were unlawful, and his campaign essentially sought to argue the same in court. Trump’s remarks about voter fraud and Democratic corruption costing him the presidency are unsubstantiated and widely unaccepted.
In Michigan, a critical battleground state that is expected to give Biden its 16 electoral votes after certification, the president filed legal challenges against the state’s most populous and historically blue county. The suit listed Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as a defendant, along with election officials in Wayne County.
Trump’s campaign introduced the legal action in federal court on Tuesday, after initially filing a similar suit in Michigan’s Court of Claims last week, which was rejected. The complaint alleged misconduct, accusing Wayne County’s election workers of predating ballots received by mail and refusing to let Republican poll watchers observe the ballot counting process. Affidavits specifically cited election procedures at Detroit’s TCF Center, where Trump supporters protested last week.
The suit asked the court to authorize a suspension of the county’s election certification process, pending completion of a ballot audit. If approved, the suspension would have threatened to halt Michigan’s statewide certification. Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny denied the request on Friday.
“Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible,” Kenny wrote in his decision.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comments but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
