Election-related lawsuits from Republicans and the Trump campaign were rejected by state judges in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Thursday.
He had little explanation in this ruling, saying only that the GOP’s request to amend its lawsuit was futile. He promised a full explanation of his reasons for the decision in the future.
The state is set to certify its votes on Friday, Nov. 20, and it’s unclear whether the party plans to appeal the decision.
Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, denounced the judge’s decision.
“Arizona voters deserve to have complete trust in their election procedures. They should also have supreme confidence that only legal ballots were counted in the 2020 election,” Ward said in a statement to media outlets. “Failure to address their concerns actively harms our state and our nation.”
“This election has been fraught with tension as voters were forced to adjust to new election procedures put in place because of COVID-19, as well as organized efforts by Democrats across the country, which helped lead to a wildly different voting process than in years past,“ she said. ”Because of this, I stand by my call for a full hand-count audit of our state’s election results.”
In Pennsylvania, a state judge rejected the Trump campaign’s bid to invalidate 2,177 ballots in Bucks County.
The Trump campaign had said that the 2,177 ballots of concern should be tossed because they were in a unsealed privacy envelopes, or lacked handwritten names or addresses on the outer envelopes, or that the addresses on the outer envelopes were mismatched. The Bucks County Board of elections violated state law in failing to reject these ballots, the campaign alleged.
“It must be noted that the parties specifically stipulated in their comprehensive stipulation of facts that there exists no evidence of any fraud, misconduct, or any impropriety with respect to the challenged ballots. There is nothing in the record and nothing alleged that would lead to the conclusion that any of the challenged ballots were submitted by someone not qualified or entitled to vote in this election,” he wrote. “At no time did Petitioners present evidence or argument to the contrary.”
Pennsylvania is set to certify its vote totals by Monday, Nov. 23.