Montgomery Co. Named In Trump Campaign's Latest Election Lawsuit

NORRISTOWN, PA — Once again, Montgomery County finds itself the target of a GOP-backed lawsuit challenging the legality of the 2020 election, days after Joe Biden was declared the projected winner of Pennsylvania and the presidency.

Montgomery was one of seven counties in Pennsylvania named Monday in the Trump campaign's latest filing, which aims to stop the Pennsylvania Department of State from certifying the final results. No hearing date had been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.

The suit resurfaces allegations that state and Democratic county officials broke the law. The claims, which chiefly surround mail-in ballots, are backed by no hard evidence in the suit.

>>Trump Team Files New PA Election Lawsuit: 5 Things To Know

"We believe our process is sound and permissible under the Election Code," Kelly Cofrancisco, a spokesperson for Montgomery County, said in response to the filing.

Philadelphia, Allegheny, Chester, Centre, Delaware, and Northampton counties are also named in the suit.

The Public Interest Law Center has filed a petition to intervene in the case. The Center's petition represents numerous voting rights groups, including Common Cause PA, the League of Women Voters PA, NAACP-PA, and the Black Political Empowerment Project.

"The voters have spoken,” said Terrie Griffin, co-President of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “The votes are being counted. It is time to end these baseless attempts to overthrow the will of the people. The League joined this case to defend voters' voices in the democratic process. We must now allow that process to play out unimpeded."

This isn't the first time Montgomery County, a heavily Democratic county which helped swing Pennsylvania for Biden, has been brought to court by Republicans since Election Day. U.S. Congressional candidate Kathy Barnette, who lost to incumbent Democrat Madeleine Dean in the 4th District election, filed a suit on Election Day over the county "pre-canvassing" ballots.

That suit, which was met with skepticism by a federal judge, claimed that the county had broken the law in allowing voters to correct "naked" ballots and other issues on Election Day, ensuring that their vote was counted. That suit was withdrawn just days later, with lawyers for Barnette citing similar pending litigation.

The fixing of errors on ballots is just one of the oft-cited gripes reiterated in the new suit filed Monday. It also claims that mail-in ballots are held to a lesser security standard than in-person voting, and that the three-day deadline extension for mail-in ballots, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, is illegal. See details here.

Biden defeated Trump soundly in Montgomery County, by a significantly wider margin than Hillary Clinton won here in 2016. With a small amount of mail-in ballots still to be counted in the county, Biden earned 313,543 votes to Trump's 182,907.