A U.S. federal court on Saturday evening dismissed President Donald Trump’s suit that sought to cancel millions of mail-in votes in the Nov. 3 election in Pennsylvania.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this is yet another major blow to efforts by Trump to have the presidential election results invalidated in battleground states where he lost.
His legal team, led by former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, had approached the Middle District Court of Pennsylvania alleging that 1.5 million mail-in votes in the state were illegally counted.
Giuliani had alleged that the president’s poll watchers were not allowed to observe the counting of mail-in ballots.
That, he claimed, created room for local governments controlled by the opposition Democratic Party to accept fraudulent and “technically deficient ballots”.
READ ALSO :Social media regulation: “There must be freedom with boundaries” – Tunde Bakare
Giuliani claimed he had gathered “300 affidavits, declarations or our own statements” that showed there were enough fraudulent ballots to invalidate the results.
But in his ruling, the presiding judge, Matthew Brann, threw out the case “for lack of compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption”.
Brann berated the Trump lawyers for filing a “disjointed lawsuit”, adding that he would not “disenfranchise almost seven million voters” on baseless allegations.
“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption.
“That has not happened,” the judge, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said.
He dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the Trump team cannot resubmit it.
President-elect Joe Biden is the projected winner in Pennsylvania with 3,458,312 votes to Trump’s 3,376,499, a margin of 81,813 votes.
With this comes the state’s 20 Electoral College votes for the former Vice President who now has 306 electoral votes, according to media projections.
This has placed him well above the 270 electoral votes required to win the race.
Monday is the deadline for local governments in Pennsylvania to confirm their results of the presidential election and send to the Secretary of State for certification.
Trump, who has refused to concede the election, has filed no fewer than 18 lawsuits in battleground states where he lost, alleging massive voter fraud.
But he has not supplied any concrete evidence to back the allegation, prompting judges in several states to dismiss many of the suits.