CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. — Chatham County Judge James Bass dismissed President Trump’s lawsuit in Georgia Thursday morning.
The suit, which surrounded controversy over 50 absentee ballots, argued that the county was not following correct procedure when it came to late absentee ballots. The Trump campaign said in the suit that election officials improperly counted absentee ballots received after the state’s 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day. They asked the judge to order Georgia election officials to follow the law on storing and counting absentee ballots.
After county officials provided evidence to prove all ballots were legitimate and late ballots were not being accepted, the suit was dismissed.
[CLICK HERE: Live Real-Time Election Results]
“There is no evidence that the Chatham County Board of Elections or the Chatham County Board of Registrars has failed to comply with the law,” Bass said in his ruling.
Trump has also filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those largely demand better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted.
Thursday afternoon, s Michigan judge dismissed the lawsuit their. Judge Cynthia Stephens said the defendant, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, was the wrong person to sue because she doesn’t control the logistics of local ballot counting, even if she is the state’s chief election officer.
ELECTION 2020 HEADLINES:
- Democratic party flips Republican stronghold blue in Gwinnett County
- Gwinnett, Cobb, Henry counties elect first Black sheriffs in history
- Here’s what happened with Georgia’s U.S. House seats that were up for grabs
Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer on Thursday called the Trump campaign’s lawsuits meritless.
“I want to emphasize that for their purposes these lawsuits don’t have to have merit. That’s not the purpose ... It is to create an opportunity for them to message falsely about what’s taking place in the electoral process,” Bauer said, accusing the Trump campaign of “continually alleging irregularities, failures of the system and fraud without any basis.”
But Trump campaign officials accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, despite no evidence anything of the sort was taking place.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, in a call with reporters Thursday morning, said that “every night the president goes to bed with a lead” and every night new votes “are mysteriously found in a sack.”
[LIVE UPDATES: Judge dismisses President Trump’s lawsuit in Georgia]
Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said additional legal action was expected and would be focused on giving campaign officials access to view ballots being counted.
“We will literally be going through every single ballot,” he said of the count in hotly contested Nevada.
Trump’s campaign has also announced that it will ask for a recount in Wisconsin, also a state the AP called for Biden on Wednesday. Stepien previously cited “irregularities in several Wisconsin counties,” without providing specifics.
Read more from the Associated Press here.
