Donald Trump tweets and plays golf as bid to overturn election loss suffers another setback
- Pennsylvania is poised to certify Joe Biden’s victory there after a judge threw out Trump’s complaints of electoral fraud
- The judge wrote in his ruling that Trump’s team had presented ‘strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations’
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The decision – announced in a scathing judgment which excoriated the Trump team’s legal strategy – paves the way for Pennsylvania to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory there, which is scheduled to take place Monday.
Meanwhile, Trump went golfing after making a brief online appearance at the G20 summit, an event hosted by Saudi Arabia but staged virtually because of Covid-19. He has rarely appeared in public since his electoral loss, but has not given up on his provocative Twitter campaign.
“The proof pouring in is undeniable,” he tweeted Saturday. “Many more votes than needed. This was a LANDSLIDE!”
With the clock ticking down to Biden’s January 20 inauguration, Trump’s team has focused on trying to stop battleground states from certifying election results, in addition to his numerous legal challenges that have so far failed.
Trump’s campaign has requested a recount of votes in Georgia on Saturday, a day after state officials certified results showing Biden won the state.
Georgia’s results showed Biden beating Trump by 12,670 votes out of about 5 million cast, or 0.25 per cent. State law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5 per cent.
A Trump legal team statement said: “Today, the Trump campaign filed a petition for recount in Georgia. We are focused on ensuring that every aspect of Georgia State Law and the U.S. Constitution are followed so that every legal vote is counted. President Trump and his campaign continue to insist on an honest recount in Georgia, which has to include signature matching and other vital safeguards.“
In Pennsylvania, Judge Matthew Brann wrote in his ruling that Trump’s team had presented “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” in their complaints about mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.
“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” Brann wrote. “Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
Biden won the state-by-state Electoral College votes that ultimately decide who takes the White House by 306 to 232. The Electoral College is due to formally vote on December 14, with certifications to take place beforehand.
States’ certification of results of their popular votes is usually routine following a US presidential election. But Trump’s refusal to concede has complicated the process and drawn concerns that he could cause long-term damage to Americans’ trust in their voting system.
Only a limited number of Republicans have so far recognised Biden as the winner and called on Trump to concede.
The Pennsylvania court ruling prompted a Republican senator from the state, Pat Toomey, to join those ranks, saying Biden “won the 2020 election and will become the 46th president of the United States”.
“President Trump should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process,” Toomey said in a statement that congratulated Biden while specifying he voted for Trump.
The judgment in Pennsylvania came hours after Republicans also requested a delay in certification in Michigan, another battleground, in a letter that repeated allegations of irregularities in the state which Biden won by 155,000 votes.
G20 leaders meet in remote conference to discuss coronavirus fallout
They asked for a delay of two weeks to allow for a full audit of results in Wayne County, the state’s largest and where majority-black Detroit is located, which was won overwhelmingly by Biden.
Michigan’s board of canvassers, which includes two Democrats and two Republicans, is also due to meet Monday to certify the results.
Republican Party national committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the party’s Michigan chair Laura Cox called on the board to “adjourn for 14 days to allow for a full audit and investigation into those anomalies and irregularities.”
Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has said that audits cannot be conducted until after certification because officials do not have legal access to the documents needed until then.
On Saturday, she posted on Twitter that there had been “no evidence” to draw into question the result of the election.
“In a nutshell: 5.5m Michigan citizens voted,” she wrote. “The results of their votes are clear. No evidence has emerged to undermine that.”
Trump goes after Republican poll officials who won’t bend to his will
On Friday, Trump invited Michigan lawmakers to the White House as part of his bid to subvert the voters’ will, but the legislators stood firm, saying they would honour the election’s outcome.
Biden has so far moderated his criticism of Trump’s actions, though he has spoken of “incredibly damaging messages being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions,” adding: “It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks.”
