The US Supreme Court has brought an abrupt end to a long-shot lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by President Donald Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states, dealing him a crushing setback in his quest to undo his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden.
US President Donald Trump has challenged the election results in numerous states. Photo: AFP
The justices in a brief order rejected the bid by Texas to file the extraordinary challenge targeting Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin directly with the Supreme Court, as is allowed in some instances of litigation between states under a legal doctrine called "original jurisdiction."
The order said Texas did not have legal standing to bring the claim.
"Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections," the court said in the unsigned order.
The case was filed on Tuesday by the Republican attorney general of Texas, a Trump ally, against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Republican president on Wednesday filed a motion to intervene and become a plaintiff.
The four states in a filing with the court on Thursday asked the justices to reject the lawsuit, which they said had no factual or legal grounds.
Texas filed the long-shot suit against the four election battleground states on Tuesday directly with the Supreme Court. It asked that the voting results in those states be thrown out because of their changes in voting procedures that allowed expanded mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.
"What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts," Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania's Democratic attorney general, wrote in a filing to the nine justices.
Trump's campaign and his allies already have been spurned in numerous lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the election results.
The Texas lawsuit, Shapiro wrote, was adding to a "cacophony of bogus false claims" about the election.
Trump has falsely claimed he won re-election and has made baseless allegations of widespread voting fraud. State election officials have said they have found no evidence of such fraud.
- Reuters
