Trump campaign files lawsuit in Georgia seeking to pause vote count

Trump campaign files lawsuit in Georgia seeking to pause vote count

Voters must return their ballots to election offices by 7pm on election day in order to have them counted.

Demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue in New York to advocate for the counting of all votes on Nov 4. (AP pic)
WASHINGTON:
US President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign on Wednesday said it had filed a lawsuit in Georgia seeking to pause the state’s count for the presidential election.

The lawsuit, brought against the Chatham County Board of Elections, asked a judge to order the county to secure and account for ballots received after 7pm on Election Day, according to a court document released by the campaign.

“President Trump and his team are fighting for the good of the nation to uphold the rule of law, and Georgia’s law is very clear: to legally count, mail ballots must be received by 7pm on Election Day,” deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said in a statement.

Trump’s campaign has mounted a multi-pronged legal attack in several battleground states in the wake of the tight Nov 3 presidential election.

The campaign has asked to intervene in a pending US Supreme Court case over whether Pennsylvania, another key state that was still working its way through hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots sent by Election Day.

It also said it has filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania seeking to halt vote counting, arguing that officials had failed to allow fair access to counting sites.

“The Trump campaign is filing a number of meritless lawsuits around the country. Don’t be deceived,” Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias said on Twitter. “They know they have lost and this is all they have left.”

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