President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump's legal team has promised to launch a multi-state legal campaign contesting Joe Biden's presidential victory, including a federal suit filed Monday regarding Pennsylvania's vote count process.
The lawsuit, aiming to halt officials from certifying Biden's victory in the state, alleged that the mail-in voting system “lacked all of the hallmarks of transparency and verifiability that were present for in-person voters," Reuters reported. Despite Trump's legal team's claims, The New York Times reported that no irregularities or fraud has been reported in any state.
At a Philadelphia news conference on Sunday, Trump’s attorney and personal adviser Rudy Giuliani detailed plans to file a lawsuit alleging that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were involved in vote fraud, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, said he believes the lawsuits may reverse the election outcome to be in favor of Trump, at least in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania, a battleground state with more than 20 electoral votes, propelled Biden above the 270 votes needed to win the presidency after mail-in and absentee votes from Philadelphia began to given the former Vice President the lead on Friday morning. Though the race was called by the Associated Press on Saturday morning, Trump has repeatedly refused to concede the election.
Giuliani’s contentions range from Pennsylvania officials recording the votes of dead citizens, to excluding Republican observers from watching the state's vote-counting process.
While Giuliani claims that Pennsylvania election officials violated federal civil rights law and state law with charges of voter fraud and improper handling of mail-in ballots, Democratic lawyers and election officials continue to dismiss the challenges as unsupported attacks on the state's routine election process.
“We have already addressed Mr. Giuliani’s baseless claims in multiple courts and have acted in accordance with the law at all times,” a spokesperson for the City of Philadelphia told The Inquirer. Attorneys for Biden have similarly condemned accusations of voter fraud as “meritless,” ABC News reported.
Biden, a former Penn Presidential Professor of Practice, narrowly won the state of Pennsylvania on Saturday by a margin of less than 1%, the Inquirer reported. The president-elect campaigned in Pennsylvania more than any other state and proved particularly successful among voters in the Philadelphia suburbs.
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