Trump campaign lawsuit to prevent Pa.’s election results from being certified dismissed by federal judge

Trump campaign lawsuit to prevent Pa.’s election results from being certified dismissed by federal judge

By Emily Previti/ WITF

November 23, 2020

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President Donald Trump is appealing a federal judge’s dismissal of his campaign’s effort to block the certification of votes in Pennsylvania.

The judge’s order, which was issued Saturday night, Nov. 21, means certification can move forward Monday. That’s the deadline for counties to fully certify and transmit their vote counts to the secretary of state.

Trump’s campaign claimed the election was unfair because Philadelphia and six majority-Democrat counties flagged problems with mailed ballots so voters could fix them and Republican-majority counties did not.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann rejected the campaign’s arguments, however, likening them to, quote, “Frankenstein’s monster” for being haphazardly stitched together.

Brann also noted the accusations in the complaint were speculative and unsupported by evidence.

The truth is, some Republican-heavy counties did let voters correct technical errors on ballots rather than throw them away.

Brann also said scrapping nearly 7 million votes would’ve been a drastic remedy given how few ballots were corrected by voters. 

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