SULAIMANI (ESTA) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign on Wednesday took another step in its legal strategy to upend his U.S. election loss by filing a lawsuit in Michigan while Georgia announced a recount and President-elect Joe Biden focused on laying the foundation of his incoming administration.
The Republican president’s team went to federal court to try to block Michigan, a Midwestern battleground state that he won in 2016, from certifying the Nov. 3 election results, Reuters reported. Trump trailed by roughly 148,000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points, in unofficial Michigan vote totals.
Biden has a slimmer lead of just over 14,000 votes, or 0.3 points, in Georgia, a southern state that has not been carried by Democrats since 1992.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand recount of all ballots cast there, which he said was expected to begin this week and would be completed in time to certify the results by a Nov. 20 deadline.
“It’ll take every bit of the time that we have left, for sure. It’s a big lift,” Raffensperger told a news conference.
Trump has declined to concede the election to Biden, instead lodging a flurry of lawsuits in pivotal states to try to back up his unsupported claims of widespread voting fraud. The Michigan lawsuit also made allegations of misconduct in the voting, with the focus on the Democratic stronghold of Wayne County, which includes Detroit.
Jake Rollow, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of State, said the Trump campaign was promoting false claims to erode public confidence in Michigan’s elections.
“It does not change the truth: Michigan’s elections were conducted fairly, securely, transparently, and the results are an accurate reflection of the will of the people,” Rollow said in a statement.
Prominent Republican lawmakers and other Trump allies have backed the president’s strategy, saying he has the right to contest the election results. The suit was filed one day after Biden called Trump’s failure to concede an “embarrassment.”
Judges have tossed out several of the Trump lawsuits, and legal experts say the litigation has scant chance of changing the election outcome.
While acknowledging there was “no silver bullet” that would overturn the election, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Wednesday’s developments were part of a process that could pave the way for a second Trump four-year term.
Earlier, the Trump campaign said it had evidence that a handful of dead people in Georgia had voted in last week’s election.
To remain in office, Trump would need to win all three undecided states plus overturn the results in one or more states in Biden’s column.
