Facing the potential for narrow losses in multiple battlegrounds, President Donald Trump might have to persuade the Supreme Court to set aside votes in two or more states to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president.
How will he do it?
Bill O’Reilly predicted Trump will take the fight to the Supreme Court by challenging the integrity of the vote.
President Trump alleging massive election fraud so here we go. The vote will be legally challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court. Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada are flash points.
— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) November 6, 2020
It’s a substantially different scenario than in the contested presidential election of 2000, which was effectively settled by the Supreme Court.
Then, the entire fight was over Florida’s electoral votes and involved a recount as opposed to trying to halt — or reverse — the inital counting of ballots.
Trump’s campaign and Republicans are already mounting legal challenges in several states, although most are small-scale lawsuits that do not appear to affect many votes.
Judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly dismissed two campaign lawsuits Thursday, undercutting the Trump campaign’s legal strategy.
However, if evidence of widespread voter fraud is discovered by investigators, a case could be quickly brought before the high court.
Time is running out. Biden has inched closer to the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House every hour.
Trump and his campaign promised even more legal action, making unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud.
Speaking in the White House briefing room Thursday, the president launched into a litany of claims about how Democrats were trying to unfairly deprive him of a second term. “But we think there’ll be a lot of litigation because we can’t have an election stolen like this,” Trump said, suggesting that the Supreme Court might eventually decide the election.
After the Pennslyvania vote count went against Trump for the first time early Friday, the president’s campaign released a statement.
“This election isn’t over,” they said.
This election is not over. The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final. Georgia is headed for a recount, where we are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested, and where President Trump will ultimately prevail. There were many irregularities in Pennsylvania, including having election officials prevent our volunteer legal observers from having meaningful access to vote counting locations. We prevailed in court on our challenge, but were deprived of valuable time and denied the transparency we are entitled to under state law. In Nevada, there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots. Finally, the President is on course to win Arizona outright, despite the irresponsible and erroneous ‘calling’ of the state for Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press. Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House, but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.
Trump is used to suing and being sued. A USA Today analysis found that he and his businesses were involved in at least 3,500 state and federal court actions in the three decades before he became president.
Trump campaign officials have accused Democrats of trying to steal the election and claimed they had evidence of thousands of illegal votes in Nevada. The Trump campaign filed a new federal lawsuit after hours Thursday in Nevada, alleging that the ineligible votes were cast in the Las Vegas area, the biggest Democratic stronghold in an otherwise predominantly GOP state.
However, the campaign hasn’t yet publicly presented the alleged evidence.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, in a call with reporters Thursday morning, said that “every night the president goes to bed with a lead” and every night new votes “are mysteriously found in a sack.”
Experts say it is quite common in presidential elections to have vote counting continue after election day.
Trump’s campaign has also announced that it will ask for a recount in Wisconsin. Stepien previously cited “irregularities in several Wisconsin counties,” without providing specifics.
The Associated Press contributed to this article