Texas sues battleground states, claims unconstitutional changes made to election laws
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the battleground states made unconstitutional changes to election laws during the coronavirus pandemic.
The four states played a pivotal role in former Vice President Joe Biden securing the presidency in the November general election. Paxton in a statement argues the four states “destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.”
“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the Constitution,” Paxton said. “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. Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election. We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”
The suit asks the Supreme Court to prohibit the certifying of presidential electors and asks for new ones to be selected.
In the lawsuit, Paxton argues officials from the four states announced new rules for conducting the 2020 election that were inconsistent with state laws “defining what constitutes a lawful vote.”
The states also “failed to segregate ballots in a manner that would permit accurate analysis to determine which ballots were cast in conformity with the legislatively set rules and which were not,” the lawsuit reads.
“This is especially true of the mail-in ballots in these States,” the lawsuit reads. “By waiving, lowering, and otherwise failing to follow the state statutory requirements for signature validation and other processes for ballot security, the entire body of such ballots is now constitutionally suspect and may not be legitimately used to determine allocation of the Defendant States’ presidential electors.”
Despite numerous claims during the 2020 election, there has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Attorney General William Barr recently told the Associated Press that officials have been following up with specific complaints, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election.”
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Twitter disputed the lawsuit.
“This has become a circus,” the tweet reads. “The continued attacks on our election are beyond meritless, beyond reckless. It is a scheme by the sitting president (and) his enablers to disregard the will of the people. It’s not serious (and) it will not stand.”
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul called the lawsuit “embarrassing” and a waste of tax dollars.
“Texas is as likely to change the outcome of the Ice Bowl as it is to overturn the will of Wisconsin voters in the 2020 presidential election,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to the Green Bay Packers’ victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1967 NFL Championship. “As we are in various other meritless cases challenging the results of the election, the Wisconsin Department of Justice will defend against this attack on our democracy.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel referred to the lawsuit as a “publicity stunt.”
“The erosion of confidence in our democratic system isn’t attributable to the good people of Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia or Pennsylvania but rather to partisan officials, like Mr. Paxton, who place loyalty to a person over loyalty to their country,” Nessel said in a statement.
Katie Byrd, a spokesperson for Georgia’s Attorney General Office, added: “With all due respect, the Texas Attorney General is constitutionally, legally and factually wrong about Georgia.”
Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Manny Garcia said the lawsuit is an effort by Paxton to “make news and potentially gain enough favor with Trump to warrant a presidential pardon,” referring to the attorney general’s legal troubles.
“How embarrassing,” Garcia said in a statement. “Joe Biden won this election. Paxton should stop trying to subvert the will of the people and start working to do the job he was elected to do — protecting everyday Texans. ”
House Democratic Caucus Chair Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, said the state needs “an Attorney General who works for Texas, not one that make a mockery of his office to curry favor with a defeated president.”
Texas GOP Chair Allen West said he supports the lawsuit.
“We cannot tolerate judicial and executive actions that undermine election law,” West said in a statement. “These matters should be resolved in our respective state legislatures. And our Constitution supports that assertion, Texas has standing in filing this petition. “
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Twitter said Paxton “is right to challenge those battleground states that made last minute changes to election procedures that weakened ballot integrity. Americans must be able to trust our elections. “
Gov. Greg Abbott told Spectrum News the “key thing” the lawsuit does is try to “accelerate the process of providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process.”
“The United States of America needs that,” Abbott said.
This story was originally published December 8, 2020 at 9:08 AM.
