States Back Texas in Supreme Court Suit, Alleging ‘Unconstitutional’ Election in Battleground States

The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2020. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Several states have expressed their support for Texas’s bid to challenge the election results in four battleground states, which was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Attorneys general for Arkansas, Alabama, Missouri, and Louisiana have issued statements in support of a motion put forward by Texas asking the nation’s top court for permission to sue Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin in an attempt to protect the integrity of the 2020 election.

Texas is alleging that the four key battleground states unconstitutionally changed election laws, treated voters unequally, and triggered significant voting irregularities by relaxing ballot-integrity measures. The state is asking the court to declare that the four battleground states conducted the 2020 election in violation of the Constitution.

The suit, filed on Dec. 7 and docketed the next day, is also seeking to prohibit the count of the Electoral College votes cast by the four states. For the defendant states that have already appointed electors, it asks the court to direct the state legislatures to appoint new electors in line with the Constitution.

Responding to Texas’s motion, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry urged the top court to take up the case, saying that “only the U.S. Supreme Court can ultimately decide cases of real controversy among the states under our Constitution.”

Landry said Americans share “deep concerns” regarding how the 2020 general election was conducted. The state had previously filed a friend-of-the-court brief (pdf) to the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to take up a separate case—cited as Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar—that challenges a state Supreme Court order allowing election officials to accept absentee ballots received up to three days after Nov. 3.

“Millions of Louisiana citizens, and tens of millions of our fellow citizens in the country, have deep concerns regarding the conduct of the 2020 federal elections,” Landry wrote. “Deeply rooted in these concerns is the fact that some states appear to have conducted their elections with a disregard to the U.S. Constitution.”

“Furthermore, many Louisianans have become more frustrated as some in media and the political class try to sidestep legitimate issues for the sake of expediency,” he added.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall also shared similar concerns, saying “unconstitutional actions and fraudulent votes in other states not only affect the citizens of those states, they affect the citizens of all states.”

“Every unlawful vote counted, or lawful vote uncounted, debases and dilutes citizens’ free exercise of the franchise,” Marshall said.

He added that he will decide on how to proceed in the state’s “fight to ensure election integrity” after the Supreme Court makes its decision on whether it will hear the case.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, likewise, expressed her support for Texas underscoring the importance of election integrity in a statement late evening Tuesday.

“After reviewing the motion filed by Texas in the US Supreme Court, I have determined that I will support the motion in all legally appropriate manners. The integrity of our elections is a critical part of our nation and it must be upheld,” Rutledge said.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said late Tuesday that he would “help lead the effort in support of Texas’s” Supreme Court filing, adding, “Missouri is in the fight.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Collin County Courthouse in McKinney, Texas, on Dec. 1, 2015. Jae S. Lee/The Dallas Morning News Via AP, Pool

The lawsuit argues that the four states had acted in a way that violated their own election laws and thereby breached the Constitution through enacting and implementing measures, rules, and procedures right before the Nov. 3 election.

In some instances, the defendant states enacted such measures through the use of so-called friendly lawsuits, in which the plaintiff and the defendant collude to procure a court order, the lawsuit alleges. In other instances, a variety of state election officials allegedly exceeded their authority to promulgate rules and procedures that should have been enacted by each state’s legislature, as required by the Constitution’s Elections and Electors clause.

“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution. By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

Attorneys general from the defendant states have disputed the allegations in the lawsuit.

Texas is also asking the Supreme Court (pdf) to grant a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order to block the four states from taking action to certify their election results or to prevent the state’s presidential electors from taking any official action. The presidential electors are scheduled to meet on Dec. 14.

The court has ordered the defendant states to respond to Texas’s motions by 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10.

This comes on the same day as the Supreme Court rejected to grant injunctive relief in a separate case filed by a group of Republicans seeking to block the certification of election results in Pennsylvania. The court did not give reasons for its decision or note any dissents. A lawyer in that case, cited as Kelly v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times that the plaintiffs plan to file a separate petition for a writ of certiorari, a request to ask the court to review case, in the coming days.

This case is cited as Texas v. Pennsylvania (22O155).

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.