Texas sues four other states in long-shot bid to help Trump upend election result

 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton 

Credit: Reuters

The state of Texas announced on Tuesday that it was suing several swing states in a bid to help Mr Trump upend the results of the presidential election.

The lawsuit, announced by the state’s Republican attorney general Ken Paxton, accused the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin of unlawfully changing election procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit claimed that the four states had engaged in election irregularities by failing to protect postal voting from fraud and asked the Supreme Court to delay the December 14 date for Electoral College votes to be cast.

The Electoral College is the system by which presidents are formally elected under the US Constitution. 

Texas accused election officials in the four states of failing to protect mail-in voting from fraud, thus diminishing “the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the Constitution”.

Electoral college and popular votes in US presidential elections

State officials have said they have found no evidence of any such fraud that would change the results. There was a surge in postal voting due to the pandemic, as many Americans stayed away from polling places to avoid the spread of Covid-19. 

The lawsuit represents the latest legal effort intended to reverse Mr Trump’s electoral defeat in the Nov. 3 election. Those efforts have so far failed and the Texas suit also appears unlikely to succeed.

Legal experts questioned the legitimacy of the lawsuit and the likelihood of the Supreme Court taking up the case.

It comes at a time when Texas’ attorney general is facing allegations that he engaged in bribery and other wrongdoing to illegally help a political donor.

FOR COURAGE & BRILLIANCE! https://t.co/mPM5ejy2lU

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2020

Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, called Mr Paxton’s lawsuit filing a “press release masquerading as a lawsuit”.

Paul Smith, a professor and election law expert at Georgetown University’s law school, also suggested that Texas did not have a legitimate basis for the suit.

“There is no possible way that the state of Texas has standing to complain about how other states counted the votesand how they are about to cast their electoral votes,” he said.

Democrats and other critics have accused Mr Trump of aiming to reduce public confidence in the integrity of US elections and undermine American democracy by trying to subvert the will of the voters.

Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General, Dana Nessel, called the lawsuit “a publicity stunt, 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,” Ms Nessel added.

A spokeswoman for Georgia’s Republican attorney general’s office said: “With all due respect, the Texas Attorney General is constitutionally, legally and factually wrong about Georgia.”