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Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Supreme Court Won’t Fast-Track Trio of Trump Election Challenges

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to expedite three election-related challenges that President Donald Trump and his campaign lodged over the 2020 presidential election.

WASHINGTON (CN) — The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to expedite three election-related challenges that President Donald Trump and his campaign lodged over the 2020 presidential election.

Per its custom, the court did not include any comment on the order.

“I’m not in the business of reading tea leaves; it is what it is,” said Bruce Marks, an attorney for Trump with the firm Marks & Sokolov.

Filed not long after November 4, the three cases take aim at state that extended the deadline for mail-in ballots to be received by in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic. They also accuse election clerks of misconduct when tabulating ballots.

Such challenges are separate from the case brought by Texas and another dozen states, which the Supreme Court denied a month ago. 

Just last week, a group of congressman led by Republican Louie Gohmert brought yet another bid before the justices as a mob of Trump supporters occupied the U.S. Capitol. The court rejected the challenge the next day.

Among the three cases that failed to move the justices on Monday was one that Trump’s attorneys lodged on Christmas Eve over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s extension for mail-in ballots and block of additional voter identification requirements.

Another suit the high court refused to fast-track is a challenge that accuses Wisconsin election clerks in Milwaukee and Dane counties of having encouraged voters to falsify information that they were homebound. 

George Burnett, with Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry, argues that the number of requests for mail-in ballots shot up after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers stay-at-home order, making it impossible for clerks could not possibly confirm if each voter was indefinitely confined. 

“Unsurprisingly, along with the clerks’ failure to police the ‘indefinitely confined’ status came an explosion of voters claiming such status to obtain ballots without providing photo ID,” Burnett’s petition to the court states.

Burnett and co-counsel James Troupis did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The third case addressed by Monday’s order list also involves Wisconsin, demanding that the court invalidate some 91,000 votes that were left either in unmanned drop-box locations or collected by poll workers at events in the park, representing  “had the highest percentage totals of Biden votes.”

“The Wisconsin Election Code does not authorize unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes,” William Bock, an attorney for Trump at Kroger, Gardis & Regas, wrote in a petition. “They do not remotely satisfy Wisconsin laws for handling absentee ballots.” 

Bock did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Of the more than 10,000 petitions it receives annually, the Supreme Court hears 1% of cases.


Categories / Appeals, Politics

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