The Trump campaign has suggested to a federal judge in Pennsylvania that he should let the Republican-controlled state legislature select electors to cast votes in the U.S. Electoral College system.
The campaign made the suggestion to U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann in a proposed revised complaint, filed on Nov. 18, in a case alleging that the state’s election process violated the Constitution because of differing standards of verification and transparency for mail-in versus in-person voters.
The lawsuit seeks to block the state from certifying its election results, or to block the certification of results that include mail-in ballots that didn’t meet statutory requirements, were cured without authorization, or were cast in violation of the law. The campaign’s suggestion to allow the state legislature to decide electors was proposed as an alternative to the invalidation of votes.
The campaign argued that it believes “statistical analysis” will find that “over 70,000 mail and other mail ballots which favor” Democratic nominee Joe Biden “were improperly counted” and “sufficient to turn the election.”
The Trump campaign also reinstated its claims that the due process, equal protection, and elections and electors clauses were violated when campaign poll watchers were denied access to “meaningfully” observe the ballot-counting process. These claims were also removed in their amended complaint.
It also alleged that Democrats that controlled the county election boards named in the lawsuit engaged in a “deliberate scheme of intentional and purposeful discrimination to favor Biden over Trump.” The election officials, the campaign claims, excluded Republican and Trump campaign poll observers from watching the counting of mail-in ballots to hide their decision to count ballots that should have been disqualified because of irregularities.
During the Nov. 17 hearing, Giuliani argued that “widespread nationwide voter fraud” claims weren’t isolated and had been argued in courts in “at least 10 other jurisdictions,” in a bid to keep the lawsuit alive.
Lawyers for the defendants, who filed motions to dismiss the case, took issue with Giuliani’s arguments. Mark Aronchick, who represented some state counties’ election boards, was critical of the allegations of fraud.
“Mr. Giuliani is talking about another case, some invented case, some fantasy world case. But the case before your honor, they removed those allegations,” Aronchick said in his arguments.
“Dismiss this case, please dismiss this case, so we can move on to the real business of this country,” he urged the judge.
