Supreme Court denies Trump bid to overturn election in Michigan, other states

LANSING — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit seeking to undo certified election results in Michigan and three other battleground states, clearing the way for an Electoral College vote Monday to propel Democrat Joe Biden to the White House. 

The suit, brought by Texas and backed by President Donald Trump and some fellow Republicans, sought to prohibit electors from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Georgia from participating in the Electoral College vote.  

But Texas "has not demonstrated a judicially cognizant interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections," the court said in an unsigned order. "All other pending motions are dismissed as moot."

• 2020 Michigan election tracker;  the latest news
• Why 19 Michigan Republicans backed Trump bid to overturn vote: ‘We want answers’

In an accompanying statement, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they thought the court should accept the complaint but "would not grant other relief" sought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to upend certified election results.

The ruling came hours after the Michigan Supreme Court rejected the Trump campaign’s final state appeal in a separate decision.

The high court ruling all but ends Trump's long-shot legal bid to overturn an election he lost to Biden by roughly 7 million votes nationwide.  He still could pressure Congress not to accept the Electoral College’s vote, but experts say that also is a doomed effort.

The president, who claimed the election was “rigged” but failed to offer evidence of widespread voter fraud that any court found credible, had pressured Republican-led Legislatures in Michigan and other states to ignore the popular vote and choose their own electors.

Trump’s overtures were rejected by GOP leaders in the Michigan Legislature, and courts repeatedly dismissed his complaints. Not even the U.S. Supreme Court, to which Trump has appointed three of nine justices, saw fit to give the president the type of extraordinary ruling he sought. 

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who had urged dismissal of the case, called the decision "an important reminder that we are a nation of laws, and though some may bend to the desire of a single individual, the courts will not."

Now, Nessel said, “it’s time to move forward — not as separate states, red or blue —  but as United States in the continuing pursuit of a more perfect union.”

Michigan’s 16 electors are expected to convene at the state Capitol in Lansing at 2 p.m. Monday, where they are bound by law to cast their votes for Biden. He is expected to receive 306 electoral votes, more than the 270 necessary, and be inaugurated Jan. 20. 

With protests expected outside the Capitol, state police are offering electors escorts into the building, elector Chris Cracchiolo told Bridge Michigan earlier Friday. 

The ceremonial vote is typically a quiet affair, but "the actual magnitude of importance has increased just about daily," said Cracchiolo, who is chair of the Grand Traverse Democratic Party. 

"My hope is that after Monday, that brings an end to things, and it does bring the election season to a conclusion." 

Legal experts had predicted the Supreme Court would reject the suit because Texas did not have clear legal standing to undo results in states like Michigan, where Biden won the popular vote by 154,144 votes. 

"Any lawyers that have spent any time studying election law, the state and federal constitution, assumed" the case would be dismissed, said attorney Steven Liedel, who served as counsel to Democratic former Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

"No one has demonstrated that a single vote that was cast for anyone for president in Michigan was improperly cast."

Paxton, the Texas attorney general, had urged the high court to take up the matter as a dispute between states, arguing Michigan and others had "gutted the safeguards for absentee ballots through non-legislative actions" under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

On Thursday, 15 Republicans in the Michigan House and four of the state’s congressional Republicans signed briefs backing the challenge to an election in which they also won re-election. 

But other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Paul Mitchell of Dryden, urged the president to concede defeat. 

“Can our leadership decide it is time to govern not play politics?” Mitchell said in a Friday night tweet, noting he had expected the Supreme Court to dismiss the case. “Will the weavers of conspiracies give it up?  To do otherwise is so damaging to America!”

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Liberatrian who did not seek re-election, called the Texas lawsuit "utterly frivolous" and celebrated its rejection on Twitter.

"The election fraud hoax will go down as one of the most embarrassing and dishonorable episodes in American political history, and countless Republicans went along with it and promoted it,” he wrote. 

The suit alleged that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson usurped the state Legislature by mailing absentee ballot applications to voters across the state. The suit also repeated disputed claims from GOP poll challengers that they were  denied access to absentee ballot counting in Detroit.

But multiple state courts had already dismissed similar challenges over Detroit's absentee counting board, and the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in September that Benson had legal authority to mail out the applications this fall. 

A record 5.6 million Michiganders voted in the presidential election, including 3.3 million by absentee ballot. It was the first presidential election since voters in 2018 approved a ballot initiative for no-reason absentee voting.

Biden received 2,804,040 votes in Michigan, topping Trump's 2,649,852, according to results canvassed by the state’s 83 counties and certified by the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers. 

The margin was roughly 14 times as large as Trump's 10,704-vote win in Michigan four years ago.