Trump sues to stop counting in key battleground states where voters took coronavirus preventative advice to vote by mail.  Trump wants these voters to be disenfranchised.

Legal battles are brewing over mail-in ballots still being counted in Philadelphia, a pivotal Democratic district in Pennsylvania’s battleground state.  President Trump has opposed the mail-in ballot form of voting for months. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, over a million Philadelphians saw this voting option as a must-do last opportunity to secure their vote.

At the time of this article, President Trump maintains a narrow lead in the Keystone State, though a final vote total may not be clear for days as mail-in ballots continue to be processed.  Former Vice President Biden maintains an electoral vote edge over Trump by 264 to 214.  Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes may determine the next President of the United States.

For this reason, President Trump is pulling out all the stops that would deny him the opportunity to declare himself the victor.  It was only yesterday that the president stood before America and the world and declared himself victorious.  President Trump has falsely claimed victory in the election, portraying the orderly counting of millions of legally cast votes as an illegitimate effort to steal the election.

Elections officials from New York to California said Wednesday that the vote-counting process had gone smoothly, with few, if any irregularities.

State judge refused to halt the count in Democratic-leaning Clark County

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and Nevada Republicans filed notice Monday that they’ll ask the state Supreme Court to stop the count of mail-in ballots in Clark County, the most populous Democratic-leaning county, including Las Vegas.  This was rejected. In addition, the Trump Campaign filed a lawsuit that the Clark County Registrar of Voters to turn over names of ballot workers handling the nearly 400,000 mail-in ballots received so far in Clark County. This was rejected for security reasons.

In Pennsylvania, a judge reversed an earlier lower court ruling that kept GOP watches further back out of concern about the coronavirus.  Pennsylvania judge has granted the Trump campaign’s request to observe up-close. The judge concluded that “all candidates, watchers, or candidate representatives be permitted to be present for the canvassing process.  And be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.”  There were already poll watchers representing both parties in place doing just that.

Trump campaign officials hailed the decision, calling it a “massive” win “for every person who has cast a legal ballot in the state of Pennsylvania.” But the counting goes on.

The Biden campaign was confused by the attempt to disrupt the counting process, but said, We don’t care if your observers are 18 feet away or 15 feet away or 6 feet away -- as long as election officials can do their jobs,” one Biden official tweeted Thursday,” tweeted Biden spokesman Bill Russo.

The Pennsylvania court decision like that of Nevada may have been a moral victory for Trump but is not expected to impact the ultimate vote count.

In addition to the mail-in ballot count lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Nevada, the Trump campaign sued over ballot counting in Michigan and Georgia.

In Georgia, the filing alleges that absentee ballots received after the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day were not stored in a way that prevented inadvertent or intentional counting. That “harms the interests of the Trump Campaign and President Trump because it could lead to the dilution of legal votes cast in support of President Trump,” the court filing said.

Georgia law requires late absentee ballots to be stored unopened for a set period and eventually destroyed along with other ballots, the suit says. The Board of Elections Chairman Tom Mahoney said he believes the Republican poll observer who saw 53 late absentee ballots “illegally added to a stack of on-time absentee ballots in Chatham County.” was mistaken.

Biden has won Michigan, a state which supported Mr. Trump in 2016. Pennsylvania and Georgia, however, remain too close to call.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday also demanded a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden was declared the winner.  Recounts are permitted in the state when the margin of victory is less than one percentage point. 

The races that have been concluded are:

Biden: Vt., Va., Conn., Del., Ill., Md., Mass., N.J., R.I., N.Y., N.M., D.C., Colo., N.H., Calif., Ore., Wash., Hawaii, Minn., Ariz., Maine (3 of 4 electoral votes), Wis., Mich.

Trump: Ky., W. Va., S.C., Ala., Miss., Tenn., Okla., Ark., Ind., N.D., S.D., Wyo., La., Neb., Kan., Mo., Idaho, Utah, Ohio, Iowa, Mont., Fla., Texas, Maine (1 of 4 electoral votes)

                      Trump and GOP launch election lawsuits in multiple states