Texas Attorney General sues battleground states over election changes

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit claims that these states made unconstitutional changes to their electoral processes.

Quick Facts

• • Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
  • These four battleground states were won by Joe Biden although many in the GOP, including President Trump, claim that fraud was involved.
  • The defendant states deny that Texas has any legitimate claim.
  • Additional states, including Louisiana and Alabama, have indicated that they will join the Texas lawsuit.

Summary

On December 8, Paxton filed a suit which claims the four battleground states “violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures” that have interfered with the electoral process and is asking the Supreme Court to “step in and correct this egregious error.” The suit joins a number of lawsuits brought by Republican officials and other interested parties claiming election fraud, but as yet no case has convinced any judge that there was widespread fraud. The defendant states claim that they have not acted unconstitutionally and that Texas’s claims are false.

Full Story

The suit says,

“Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin 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. 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.”

The filing also claims that there were “intrastate differences in the treatment of voters” during the electoral process and that the election, “suffered from significant and unconstitutional irregularities.” In addition, the suit alleges that it is statistically impossible for Biden to have won all four battleground states, explaining, “For former Vice President Biden to win these four States collectively, the odds of that event happening decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.”

A statement on the Texas Attorney General’s website says,

“The four states exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election. The battleground states flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.”

The statement continues,

“Elections for federal office must comport with federal constitutional standards. For presidential elections, each state must appoint its electors to the electoral college in a manner that complies with the Constitution. The Electors Clause requirement that only state legislatures may set the rules governing the appointment of electors and elections and cannot be delegated to local officials. The majority of the rushed decisions, made by local officials, were not approved by the state legislatures, thereby circumventing the Constitution.”

Since then the attorney generals in Louisiana and Alabama have released statements indicating their support for the Texas suit, and several other states have indicated that they may also join the suit if the Supreme Court takes it up.

Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs refutes Texas’ claims, saying, “The allegations in the lawsuit are false and irresponsible. Texas alleges that there are 80,000 forged signatures on absentee ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring forward a single person who this happened to. That’s because it didn’t happen.”

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said, “I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit. Texas is as likely to change the outcome of the Ice Bowl as it is to overturn the will of Wisconsin voters,” referring to the historic victory of Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers over the Dallas Cowboys.

Falkirk Takeaway

Trump’s legal team has had little success in its legal challenges, but that has not stopped the President from claiming he won the election nor has it stopped other parties from pressing forward with their own suits. COVID-19 did lead to major changes in the mail-in voting systems of various states, changes that states may not have been properly prepared for. It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will hear the case or whether or not Trump’s legal team and other interested parties can prove significant fraud. Texas is right, however, that potential election insecurity in one state casts a dark shadow on the integrity of each state. It is imperative that during a time when so many voters doubt the integrity of elections that all states take steps to ensure that our elections are valid, including the use of voter ID.

Check out the Falkirk Center podcast with Phil Kline and Jesse Morgan about election irregularities:

Alleged Election Fraud Evidence | Falkirk Podcast 61 w/Phill Kline & Jesse Morgan – YouTube