Trump Campaign Files Lawsuit To Stop Certification Of MI Election

MICHIGAN — The campaign of President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the state of Michigan seeking to prevent it from certifying the Nov. 3 election results as Trump refuses to concede defeat to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

The Trump campaign has not provided any evidence or proof of the claims presented in the lawsuit. The suit is part of a broader strategy by the campaign to pursue litigation in key swing states in order to have votes thrown out, even though there is no evidence of the scale of voter fraud that would be required to overturn election results.

Trump's campaign claims that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in her role as the state's head elections official, did not follow Michigan's election code "and allowed fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election," according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

Benson and local election officials failed in their duty by not providing designated ballot challengers the "meaningful opportunity to observe the conduct of elections," the lawsuit states.

Related: Joe Biden Projected Winner In Michigan Over Donald Trump

"Michigan voters were denied a fair, honest, and transparent election because, among other things, election challengers were denied opportunity to meaningfully observe the processing and counting of ballots," the lawsuit continues.

Other claims presented in the lawsuit include that ballots were unlawfully duplicated, ineligible ballots were counted — sometimes multiple times; absentee voter ballots were pre-dated to ensure they were counted; ballots were deposited in remote, unattended drop boxes without meaningful opportunities to observe or challenge the ballots; and that Wayne County used ballot tabulators that were allegedly shown to miscount votes cast for Trump and instead count them for Biden.

Trump trails Biden by more than 146,000 votes in Michigan, according to unofficial vote totals. But the president claims that he would have won were it not for “illegal” votes counted in several states that he lost or where he is currently trailing.

However, Trump and his allies haven't offered any proof, The Associated Press reported. Thus, his claims have been considered unfounded, and state officials from both parties, as well as international observers, have not reported any irregularities from Election Day.

In interviews with Patch, some election workers said the only concerns they had during the ballot counting process came from aggressive and uninformed challengers.

Read More: Detroit Election Workers Describe 'Aggressive' Poll Challengers

Some issues have been reported across the state. In Antrim County, a software issue first showed tallies heavily favored Biden. But after review, revised totals showed Trump defeating Biden while getting 56 percent of the vote, according to WZZM.

In Bay County, after the vote totals at three precincts were erroneously not counted, Biden padded his lead by more than 2,500 votes over Trump, according to ABC12 news.

An issue with ballots in Rochester Hills affected the unofficial results of a county commissioner race, officials said.

However, the lawsuit filed Tuesday presents similar claims to past lawsuits the campaign has filed in Michigan and other states, the majority of which have been quickly thrown out.

Last week, Trump's campaign filed lawsuits attempting to order state election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states to stop counting ballots while also allowing their campaign additional access to the ballot counting process.

In Michigan, that lawsuit was thrown out by Michigan Judge Cynthia Stephens, and a follow-up appeal was also rebuked Monday for having not met certain criteria.

Read More: Michigan Court Denies Trump Campaign's Appeal In Election Lawsuit