The United States Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit backed by President Donald Trump that sought to invalidate the presidential election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – all of which were won by Democrat Joe Biden, CNN reported.
The lawsuit, filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, was supported by 18 state attorneys general and 106 Republican members of Congress. But in a brief order, the Supreme Court rejected the bid, saying Texas did not have legal standing to bring the case.
The verdict is the strongest indication yet that Trump has no chance of overturning election results in court. The incumbent US president continues to claim that there was a multi-state conspiracy by the Democrats to stop him from achieving a second term.
The decision allows the US Electoral College to press ahead with a meeting on Monday, where it is expected to formally cast its votes and make Biden’s victory official. The Democrat won 306 votes to Trump’s 232 in the state-by-state Electoral College, which allots votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population.
The four states in question contributed a combined 62 votes to Biden’s total, according to Reuters. To win the White House, 270 votes are needed.
“The Supreme Court really let us down,” Trump tweeted after the verdict. “No Wisdom, no Courage!” He said the court had rejected the case “in a flash” despite his winning more votes than any other sitting president. “A Rigged Election, fight on,” the outgoing president wrote.
Trump’s tweets were flagged by Twitter for making disputed claims of election fraud.
Political analysts had expected Trump to approach the Supreme Court with a case of voter fraud in case the result was not in his favour, where he had placed three new justices in his first term, giving the Republicans a 6-3 majority. In the run-up the November 3 election, Trump had pushed for the swift confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, publicly stating that he hoped she could be in a position to help rule on an election challenge.
But Barrett and the two other justices appointed by Trump – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – signed onto the court’s order derailing the Texas suit on Friday without comment, Reuters reported. “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognisable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court’s order said.
On December 9, the United States Supreme Court had refused to stop Pennsylvania from certifying Biden’s victory. A request for recount in Wisconsin also confirmed on November 29 that Biden had won the key swing state by a margin of about 20,600 votes.
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