(Headline USA) A hearing on the Trump campaign’s federal lawsuit seeking to prevent Pennsylvania officials from certifying the vote results remains on track for Tuesday after a judge quickly denied the campaign’s new lawyer’s request for a delay.
U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew Brann told lawyers for Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and the counties and state election official it has sued that they must show up and “be prepared for argument and questioning” at the Williamsport federal courthouse.
The Trump campaign wants to prevent certification of results that give Democrat nominee Joe Biden the state’s 20 electoral votes, suing over election procedures that were not uniform across the state.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar has asked to have the lawsuit thrown out, calling its allegations in court filings “at best, garden-variety irregularities.”
Brann scheduled the hearing to discuss the campaign’s request for a temporary restraining order as well as the defendants’ request to have the case dismissed.
After harassment and threats from the Left, Pittsburgh lawyers dropped out of representing Trump’s campaign on Friday. Philadelphia election lawyer Linda Kerns and two Texas lawyers also withdrew Monday.
Camp Hill lawyer Mark Scaringi, a losing candidate in the 2012 Republican U.S. Senate primary, notified the judge he was stepping in, but did not get the delay he sought.
Trump has refused to concede and is blocking Biden’s efforts toward a smoother transition of power.
Biden’s margin in the state is now nearly 70,000 votes, according to current unofficial counts.
The Trump legal challenge centers on how some counties let voters fix, or “cure,” mail-in ballots that lacked secrecy envelopes or had other problems.
The president’s campaign’s lawsuit claims counties’ inconsistent practices violated constitutional rights of due process and equal protection under the law and resulted in the “unlawful dilution or debasement” of properly cast votes.
“Democratic heavy counties,” the lawsuit alleges, notified voters about the lack of secrecy envelopes or other problems in time for some to fix them, but counties in Republican regions “followed the law and did not provide a notice and cure process, disenfranchising many.”
The lawsuit seeks to stop Boockvar and election boards in seven Biden-majority counties that are co-defendants from counting absentee and mail-in ballots that the Republican president’s campaign claims were “improperly permitted to be cured.”
Boockvar’s lawyers described Trump’s claims as generalized grievances and speculative injuries that would not warrant throwing out the election results.
They told Brann that other counties could have permitted their voters to fix problem mail-in ballots, but chose not to.
“Election practices need not cater to the lowest common denominator, and Plaintiffs’ arguments would improperly penalize those counties that are enfranchising voters by helping them avoid ballot disqualification,” they wrote.
Trump’s campaign has also launched legal challenges complaining that its poll watchers were unable to scrutinize the voting process.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
