Decision 2020

Lawsuits, Injunctions, Court Briefs, Oh My: Donald Trump's Legal Battles in Pa. Explained

President Trump has always had a reputation for trying to use courts to remedy his problems. Here's where the current litigation over his loss in Pennsylvania to Joe Biden stands.

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President Donald Trump and his lawyers, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani, are suing to save face in front of his millions of Make America Great Again supporters.

That's what 10 different sources close to the president and his campaign told The Associated Press in a story published Monday.

But do any of the lawsuits -- eight and counting in Pennsylvania and Nevada -- have any chance of real-world effects in battleground states? The election has been called for President-elect Joe Biden. Nevertheless, the courts in Pennsylvania are currently weighing a few lawsuits directly related to mail-in ballots.

The U.S. Supreme Court may also eventually take arguments from the Trump campaign and its allies in Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled legislature about an issue with the mail-in ballot counting as well.

However, analysts don't believe any of the lawsuits in their current forms have a chance to reverse the outcome in Pennsylvania, where Biden's lead on Monday surpassed that of Trump's victory margin in the state in the 2016 election.

(Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by 44,292 votes. Biden, as of Monday afternoon, has received 44,588 more votes than Trump. That lead is likely to continue rising until the remaining 53,000 provisional ballots are counted, which could take several more days.)

Here are the current lawsuits in play in Pennsylvania in simple terms:

U.S. Supreme Court case: Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, Pennsylvania Secretary of State

This lawsuit potentially seeks to have none of the mail-in ballots received by county election boards after 8 p.m., Nov. 3, counted toward the state's final tally. State Secretary Kathryn Boockvar, the top elections official in Pennsylvania previously issued guidance that allowed counties to keep any mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received by Nov. 6. She also ordered the 67 counties to segregate those ballots from the rest of the in-person and mail-in votes in case of a court challenge.

Those ballots add up to about 53,000, and are divided among Democrats, Republicans and independent voters. They would not add up to enough Trump votes to make a difference, so it remains unclear how a favorable ruling for the president's legal team regarding these ballots would affect other litigation.

RULING (SO FAR): The Supreme Court told Pennsylvania to segregate those ballots received after the 8 p.m., Nov. 3, time and asked for a response for Boockvar by Saturday, Nov. 14.

Pa. Commonwealth Court: Hamm, Kelly, Allred, Horner, Connor and Hauser v. Boockvar

Several candidates for office in Pennsylvania asked the state appellate court to throw out Boockvar's guidance for counties that local election officials allow voters who cast defective ballots to essentially get a re-do in the form of a provisional ballot.

Ballots could have been defective because of no signature or the lack of a secrecy envelope.

RULING (SO FAR): The Commonwealth Court last Friday ordered counties to set aside any provisional ballots cast by voters who sought to remedy defective initial ballots. The court said it would rule on those ballots' validity at a later date.

Pa. Commonwealth Court: Trump for President v. Boockvar

The Trump campaign has asked the Commonwealth Court to move up a Nov. 12 deadline for allowing voters without a necessary form of identification to supply one in order to have their ballot counted. The campaign wants that date to be Nov. 9.

RULING (SO FAR): The court ordered that all counties segregate those ballots in question. That means that each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties must segregate into three separate bundles any ballots that fall into the purview of the three court cases.

None of those court cases have any future dates for arguments set.

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