The Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit on Friday that was filed this week by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to overturn the results of the presidential election in four states.
“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution,” the court’s unsigned order stated. “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
“The Supreme Court suit was President Trump’s last chance to overturn election results before the Electoral College convenes to formally cast ballots: 306 for Mr. Biden, 232 for the incumbent,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said they believed the court was required to hear the case but expressed no position on Texas’s claim.”
The lawsuit filed by Paxton sought to invalidate the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because, as Paxton alleged, those states exploited “the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.”
Six states — Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah — had formally joined the lawsuit this week. Twelve additional states had expressed their support for the lawsuit, including Arizona, Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
The lawsuit alleged that “certain officials in the Defendant States presented the pandemic as the justification for ignoring state laws regarding absentee and mail-in voting.” The lawsuit says that the election results were “less secure” in the defendant states. Top U.S. election officials have disputed this claim, saying that last month’s elections were “the most secure in American history.”
The lawsuit stated:
This case presents a question of law: Did the Defendant States violate the Electors Clause by taking non-legislative actions to change the election rules that would govern the appointment of presidential electors? These non-legislative changes to the Defendant States’ election laws facilitated the casting and counting of ballots in violation of state law, which, in turn, violated the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. By these unlawful acts, the Defendant States have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but their actions have also debased the votes of citizens in Plaintiff State and other States that remained loyal to the Constitution.
More than 120 Republican House members jointly filed a brief this week supporting Texas’ lawsuit.
“This brief presents [our] concern as Members of Congress, shared by untold millions of their constituents, that the unconstitutional irregularities involved in the 2020 presidential election cast doubt upon its outcome and the integrity of the American system of elections,” the brief said.
🚨🚨⚖️JUST IN: A *new* amicus has been filed that increases to 126 yesterday's number of 106 Republican House members who now support Texas' bid to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's win in the Supreme Court. Here's the new list, with the 20 additional GOP members👇 pic.twitter.com/2w5jpO0XPu
— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) December 11, 2020
This article has been expanded after publication to include additional information.