A United States federal appeals court on Friday rejected President Donald Trump campaign’s attempt to block President-elect Joe Biden from being declared the winner of Pennsylvania in the November 3 elections, Reuters reported.
The three-judge bench said the Trump campaign did not have any specific allegations as well as proof to support their claims. “Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” wrote Judge Stephanos Bibas. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so.”
The Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to consider a lower court’s decision that had rejected the Trump campaign’s claims of election irregularities in Pennsylvania, BBC reported. With the rejection, Biden’s win was certified, giving him 20 vital electoral college votes.
“Voters, not lawyers, choose the President,” the appeals court wrote in its opinion. “Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.”
Following the appeals court ruling, Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney, tweeted indicating that they will move the Supreme Court. “On to SCOTUS!,” she said. “The activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania continues to cover up the allegations of massive fraud.”
The Trump campaign has failed to convince judges of election irregularities in states critical to Biden’s victory, including Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona. Biden has won the polls 306-232 in electoral votes. Even if the president can reverse the vote in Pennsylvania in his favour, he would need to need to overturn the outcome in at least two more states.
Trump has time till December 8 to challenge and resolve election disputes before the Electoral College meets on 14 December to formally declare the victor.
The president has continued to allege election fraud and has refused to concede. However, Trump said on Thursday that he will leave the White House if the electoral college confirms President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. On Monday, Trump had agreed to allow the transition process to begin.
However, again on Friday, Trump repeated his allegations of voter fraud. “Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained,” the president tweeted. “When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!”
In another tweet, Trump said Biden performed well in cities that the most important swing states and are known to be politically corrupt. “Biden did poorly in big cities (Politico), except those of Detroit (more votes than people!), Philadelphia, Atlanta and Milwaukee, which he had to win,” he wrote. “Not surprisingly, they are all located in the most important swing states, and are long known for being politically corrupt!”
Both of his tweets on election fraud were labelled by Twitter as “disputed” similar to many of his other tweets on the matter.
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