President Donald Trump’s legal team and his conservative allies are seeking to invalidate one out of every 10 votes cast within six key states in the 2020 presidential election, according to a new analysis by The Washington Post.
The analysis, penned by The Post’s senior political writer Aaron Blake, notes that Trump’s legal team and other litigants aligned with the president have led challenges in six states integral to the final Electoral College count in this year’s race: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
If all of the legal challenges were successful, one out of every 10 voters in those six states, amounting to about 2.5 million voters overall, would be disenfranchised this year.
The number of votes being challenged is likely higher, as the analysis doesn’t include a new lawsuit filed by the campaign on Wednesday, which seeks to invalidate all votes cast in Pennsylvania.
Some outside groups are attempting to help Trump win another term, in spite of declarations from almost every mainstream media source in the country noting that Democratic candidate Joe Biden is indeed the presumed president-elect, based on vote tallies in all 50 states plus D.C.
In Wisconsin, for example, a lawsuit from an outside group sought to dismiss ballots in the Democratic strongholds of Dane and Milwaukee counties. The Post analysis also includes the effort by Wayne County, Michigan, Republican officials to decertify votes within their jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is attempting to invalidate all votes within the entire state of Pennsylvania. According to a lawsuit filed by Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday, the president is seeking to have a court declare him the winner of the election in that state, and to allow the state’s legislature, which is presently controlled by Republican lawmakers, to award him the state’s 20 Electoral College votes.
The lawsuit contends that 1.5 million votes were improperly tabulated after Election Day, and further alleges that the final vote totals should be dismissed over unfounded allegations that election observers weren’t granted adequate access to check ballots during the count.
The attempt by Trump’s lawyers may be a final long shot to change the election outcome, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that observers were indeed given reasonable accommodations to watch and challenge the counting of votes after November 3.
If the Trump campaign is successful, the final count would disregard the outcome of a state race that saw 6.9 million voters cast ballots, including 3.45 million (roughly 50 percent) who voted for Biden. For comparison, Trump received about 48.8 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania.
Neither the challenges in the six states analyzed by The Post, nor the lawsuit brought forward in Pennsylvania by Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday, appear likely to win or drastically alter the outcome of the presidential race. Still, the moves perhaps indicate what lengths that Trump and his legal team are willing to go to in order to attempt to secure him a second term in the White House, in spite of what voters across the U.S.
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