Election 2020: Lawsuits filed, recounts requested by Trump campaign — here’s where they stand

An overview on President Trump’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election results

Trump has yet to prevail in court despite the many lawsuits he and the GOP have filed in several states.

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's campaign has filed a barrage of lawsuits amid President-elect Joe Biden's win — leveling, without proof, accusations of large-scale voter fraud in states that broke for Biden.

Out of the roughly 50 lawsuits filed around the country contesting the Nov. 3 vote, Trump has lost more than 35 and the others are pending, according to an Associated Press tally.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 11 rejected a lawsuit backed by the president to overturn Biden’s election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court.

The court’s order was its second, rebuffing Republican requests that it get involved in the 2020 election outcome. The justices turned away an appeal from Pennsylvania Republicans on Dec. 8.

The Electoral College meets Monday to formally elect Biden as the next president of the United States.

On Dec. 9, a lawsuit from the Texas attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, demanded that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be invalidated, alleging that these states violated the Constitution. On Dec. 9, Trump said his campaign would join the case in the Supreme Court led by the attorney general. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Dec. 9 joined 16 other states in the last-chance effort by Texas.

"The integrity and resolution of the 2020 election is of paramount importance," Moody wrote in a statement. "The United States Supreme Court should weigh the legal arguments of the Texas motion and all pending matters so that Americans can be assured the election was fairly reviewed and decided."

Legal experts dismissed Paxton’s filing as the latest and perhaps longest legal shot since Election Day, and officials in the four states are sharply critical of Paxton.

Paxton’s motion sought to pursue a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, contending the four 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."

Paxton claimed the states didn’t do enough to safeguard absentee and mail-in ballots. State officials, and election security officials within Trump’s own administration, previously said they found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and irregularities.

Experts said the Trump campaign’s effort faced long odds given the Electoral College tally and the dozens of court rulings that found no evidence of widespread fraud in battleground states.

Biden has officially secured more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

Across the country, election officials from both parties say the 2020 election unfolded smoothly and there has been no conspiracy. In fact, the large increase in advance voting — 107 million people voting early in person and by mail — helped take the pressure off Election Day operations, officials said. There were also no reported incidents of violence at the polls or voter intimidation.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Dec. 1 that the Justice Department did not find widespread voter fraud that could have changed the outcome of the presidential election.

Biden’s transition process as president-elect had been stalled amid Trump’s resistance to acknowledging the outcome of the race. But on Nov. 23, the federal government officially recognized Biden as the "apparent winner" of the election. The go-ahead by the General Services Administration formally starts the transition of power.

Still, Trump has refused to concede his loss to Biden, and argued without evidence that the results will be overturned.

Studies have repeatedly shown that voter fraud is exceptionally rare, and when it does happen, people are generally caught and prosecuted and it does not change the outcome of the election. Typically, it involves someone wanting to honor the wishes of a loved one who recently died and either knowingly or not commits a crime by filling out that ballot.

Long before a single ballot was cast in the 2020 presidential election, Trump raised, without evidence, questions about the integrity of the election and railed against mail voting despite a long history of mail ballots being used successfully in the country. At one point, he falsely claimed the only way he could lose was if the election were rigged.

Some states that expanded mail-in voting to make it safer to cast a ballot during the virus outbreak lean Republican and voted for Trump — Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana. He has raised no concerns about the results there.

Former campaign adviser of U.S. President Donald Trump, Corey Lewandowski (L) and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi speak to the media about a court order giving President Trump's campaign access to observe vote counting operations on Nov. 5,

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Time is dwindling on Trump’s legal effort though, as the Electoral College is scheduled to meet on Dec. 14 and Congress will count the votes on Jan. 6 — electing Biden as the country's 46th president.

Prior to Election Day, there were also hundreds of lawsuits filed by both sides, dealing with changes to how the election was going to work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of them were still live on Nov. 3, but most were sorted out.

Here is a look at some of the lawsuits that have been filed and recounts that have been requested related to the 2020 presidential race since Election Day:

Trump lawsuit in New Mexico

Trump and his attorneys filed a new lawsuit on Dec. 14 in the U.S. District Court in New Mexico, according to KQRE. The lawsuit claimed the state broke the law by allowing drop boxes to be a part of the voting process in the 2020 election.

The lawsuit stated that Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver violated federal and state law when she failed to supervise the ballot drop-off boxes. Trump’s team wanted to stop the electors from casting their electoral votes. However, electors cast their five votes for Biden the same day the lawsuit was filed.

Trump’s team also wants the drop box votes to be validated and counted.

Trump lawsuits in Michigan

A federal judge on Dec. 7 rejected a request to throw out Michigan's election results, saying in a blistering motion that such an action would disenfranchise more than 5.5 million voters, according to FOX 2 Detroit.

The GOP filed the appeal to overturn the Michigan election results. Republicans wanted the state to decertify the election and order Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson not to transmit certified results to the Electoral College, and instead certify the election results for Trump. The plaintiffs also asked to impound all voting machines for inspection and for a manual recount of all absentee ballots.

The plaintiffs were asking the court to "ignore the will of millions of voters," Judge Linda Parker stated after denying the motion. "The people have spoken."

On Dec. 4, a Michigan appeals court turned down an appeal from Trump’s campaign in a challenge to how absentee ballots were handled in Detroit and other issues.

On Nov. 24, Michigan election officials certified Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state. The Board of State Canvassers, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results on a 3-0 vote with one GOP abstention.

Under state law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won by 2.8 percentage points — a larger margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Trump and his lawyers had filed a federal lawsuit on Nov. 11 in Michigan against Wayne County and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, claiming irregularities, incompetence, and unlawful vote counting. In Wayne County, Biden received more than 330,000 votes over Trump.

Trump had wanted the state to hold off on certifying the election until it was verified that the votes were cast legally.

The Wayne County board of canvassers moved to certify the vote on Nov. 17 after a contentious vote. GOP canvassers first blocked the certification for hours before reversing the move.

The Trump campaign dropped its case Nov. 19, citing statements from the Republican Wayne County canvassers who initially blocked certification of election results before approving them. The two canvassers now say they want to change their position again, but officials say there’s no way for them to rescind their vote.

Another lawsuit filed on behalf of two poll challengers asked a court to halt the certification of election results until an independent audit is completed to "ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election." But the lawyers for the two poll challengers later abruptly withdrew the suit with no explanation.

The day after Election Day, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit to halt Michigan’s vote count, claiming it did not have proper access to observing the opening of absentee ballots — which was later dismissed. The Associated Press called Michigan for Biden on the same day.

The suit was filed in the Michigan Court of Claims. The next day, Judge Cynthia Stephens ruled against the campaign after questioning Trump’s attorneys over the evidence that she called hearsay.

Poll watchers from both sides were plentiful at one major polling place in question, the TCF Center in Detroit, according to the Associated Press.

Mark Brewer, a former state Democratic Party chairman who was observing the Detroit vote counting as a volunteer lawyer, said he had been at the TCF Center all day on Nov. 4 and had talked with others who had been there the past couple of days. He said Republicans had not been denied access.

"This is the best absentee ballot counting operation that Detroit has ever had. They are counting ballots very efficiently, despite the obstructing tactics of the Republicans," Brewer said.

Another lawsuit in Michigan also sought to halt the certification of election results in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold, and the surrounding Wayne County. But on Nov. 6, Judge Timothy Kenny denied the motion for injunctive relief — ruling that the plaintiffs had made "only a claim but have offered no evidence to support their assertions."

On Nov. 13, Kenny dismissed the lawsuit, saying there were "no sinister fraudulent activities" at the TCF Center on the day ballots were counted.

Separately on Nov. 12, the Trump campaign filed a wide-ranging lawsuit challenging the counting of votes in Wayne County. But according to reports, it was "misfiled" at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., which does not have jurisdiction, and was intended for Western Michigan's U.S. District Court. It was later dismissed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Trump lawsuits in Nevada

Trump’s reelection campaign lost its legal bid to nullify Biden’s 33,596-vote electoral win in Nevada.

The Nevada Supreme Court issued a terse order late on Dec. 8, upholding a state judge’s dismissal of a case that would have either had Trump declared the winner in Nevada or blocked the state’s six electoral votes from going to Biden.

"Appellants have not pointed to any unsupported factual findings, and we have identified none," the justices said.

The state Republican party issued a statement complaining the appeal was decided on written filings submitted only hours before, and that Trump campaign attorneys didn’t get a chance to make oral arguments before the court. The statement accused the justices of rushing to judgment and failing to adequately consider the evidence.

Attorneys Shana Weir and Jesse Binnall, who represented six would-be GOP electors on behalf of the Trump campaign, had alleged widespread Nevada voter fraud and counting illegalities affected more than 130,000 votes.

Attorneys for the state and national Democratic parties defended the integrity of the vote and Judge James Todd Russell’s order. In written filings, they derided the appeal as "reckless" and "lacking any legal basis."

Russell, in Carson City, dismissed the Trump contest-of-election on Dec. 4 for failing to prove that illegal votes were cast and counted, or that legal votes were not counted.

"Contestants’ claims fail on the merits ... or under any other standard," the judge said.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruling praised Russell’s ruling, saying it "thoroughly addressed" the contest-of-election filing "and considered the evidence offered by appellants even when that evidence did not meet the requirements under Nevada law for expert testimony."

"To prevail on this appeal, appellants must demonstrate error of law, findings of fact not supported by substantial evidence or an abuse of discretion in the admission or rejection of evidence by the district court," the six justices said. "We are not convinced they have done so."

The Associated Press and FOX News on Nov. 7 declared Biden the winner of Nevada, and the Nevada Supreme Court made Biden’s win in the state official on Nov. 24, approving the state's final canvass of the election.

The former vice president won Nevada by 33,596 votes, according to results approved by elected officials in Nevada’s 17 counties — including Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, and Washoe County, which includes Reno.

Biden got 50.06% of the vote to Trump’s 47.67%.

Prior to the state’s vote certification, Binnall declared on Nov. 17 that the Republican president won in Nevada, not Biden, despite results showing otherwise.

"Donald Trump won ... after you account for the fraud and irregularities that occurred," Binnall told reporters as he announced the lawsuit asking Russell to declare Trump the winner or to invalidate the presidential vote results.

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 17 by the Trump campaign in Carson City, rehashed arguments that judges in Nevada and elsewhere have already rejected.

More than 30 lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and his allies have been rejected or dropped, including several in state and federal courts in Nevada, according to the Associated Press.

In one court filing on Nov. 20, a voting watchdog group led by a conservative former state lawmaker wanted a judge to block statewide certification of the election.

The Election Integrity Project, a group with right-wing ties, claimed voter fraud and alleged members found nearly 1,400 people who registered to vote in Nevada, moved to California, then voted in Nevada.

The judge disagreed with the contention that the election results shouldn’t be certified, saying there were ways of handling fraud, but they don’t include throwing out an election.

Trump lawsuits in Pennsylvania

On Dec. 20, Trump’s campaign team filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking to reverse several cases by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to change the state’s mail ballot law before and after the 2020 presidential election according to FOX News.

The petition cited a "related Pennsylvania case" where Justice Samuel Alito and two other justices observed the constitutionality of the state court's decision to extend the statutory deadline for receipt of mail ballots from 8 p.m. on Election Day to 5 p.m. three days later.

The campaign team said the constitutionality of the court's decision had "national importance" and may violate the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 8 rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground.

The high court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Biden was certified as the winner of the presidential race in the state with an 80,555 vote lead in a culmination of three weeks of vote counting. The state’s 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for Biden.

In any case, Biden won 306 electoral votes, so even if Pennsylvania’s results had been in doubt, he still would have more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to intervene came in a lawsuit led by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of northeastern Pennsylvania and GOP congressional candidate and Trump favorite Sean Parnell, who lost to Pittsburgh-area U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a Democrat.

The Republicans argued that Pennsylvania’s expansive vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional because it required a constitutional amendment to authorize its provisions. Just one Republican state lawmaker voted against its passage last year in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

On Nov. 28, the state supreme court tossed out another lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly and seven other Republicans. They sought to throw away mailed-in ballots or have the state decide the election saying a 2019 "no-excuse" mail voting was unconstitutional and "illegally implemented." The state’s high court said the plaintiffs waited too long to file the challenge and noted the Republicans’ staggering demand that an entire election be overturned retroactively.

On Nov. 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit court in Philadelphia rejected another appeal by the Trump Campaign to challenge the 2020 election results. The federal appeals court echoed other courts, which found no evidence of election fraud, and said "the campaign’s claims have no merit."

"Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here," Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote for the three-judge panel.

The case had been argued in a lower court by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, but Giuliani failed to offer any tangible proof of that in court, according to the Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann had said the campaign's error-filled complaint, "like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together" and denied Giuliani the right to amend it for a second time, the Associated Press reported.

The 3rd Circuit called that decision justified, citing that the number of ballots the lawsuit specifically challenges "is far smaller than the roughly 81,000 vote-margin of victory." The three judges on the panel were all appointed by Republican presidents.

"Tossing out millions of mail-in ballots would be drastic and unprecedented, disenfranchising a huge swath of electorate and upsetting all down-ballot races too. That remedy would be grossly disproportionate to the procedural challenges raised," the panel wrote. "So we deny the motion for an injunction pending appeal."

The ruling came four days after Pennsylvania officials certified their vote count for Biden.

Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, received 3,458,229 votes, according to Pennyslvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar’s office. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence received 3,377,674 votes. A third Libertarian Party candidate, Jo Jorgensen, received 79,380 votes.

Trump’s team filed a lawsuit Nov. 9 against Pennyslvania’s Secretary of Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar and seven county boards of elections. They claimed the state created a "two-track system of voting." Trump’s lawyers alleged that led to voters being treated differently depending on how they exercised their right, either in person or by mail.

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, one of the law firms representing the Trump campaign in the suit, moved to withdraw from the case on Nov. 12, according to reports.

Trump lawsuits in Georgia

After counting the ballots three times, Georgia election leaders confirmed again Dec. 7 that Biden won the state.

"We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged," Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol before the results were recertified.

Under Georgia law, a losing candidate can request a recount if the margin between the candidates is within 0.5%. Trump requested the recount after the certified results showed that Biden led by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25% of the roughly 5 million ballots cast.

The total number of votes in the recount results certified Dec. 7 was 766 fewer than the number certified when the ballots were first tallied after the election. Biden’s lead dropped from 12,670 to 11,779. That appears to be largely due to a discrepancy in Fulton County, the state’s most populous county that includes most of Atlanta.

Also on Dec. 7, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of would-be Republican presidential electors by former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. The suit alleged widespread fraud and sought to de-certify the results of the presidential race in Georgia.

"The plaintiffs essentially ask the court for perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election. They want this court to substitute its judgment for that of 2 and a half million Georgia voters who voted for Joe Biden and this I am unwilling to do," U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten said as he dismissed the suit following a hearing.

Separately, Fulton County rejected a lawsuit. In a news release Dec. 4, the Trump campaign said the lawsuit filed in the Fulton County Superior Court would outline what they claimed was Georgia’s "failure to process and secure the ballots, failure to verify the signatures on absentee ballots, the appearance of mysterious ‘pristine’ absentee ballots not received in official absentee ballot envelopes that were voted almost solely for Joe Biden, failure to allow poll watchers meaningful access to observe the election, among other violations of law," according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

At a rally in Georgia on Dec. 2, Powell and another pro-Trump attorney, Lin Wood, suggested that Republican voters sit out of the two January runoff elections that will decide control of the Senate because of the potential for fraud.

Powell filed a lawsuit Nov. 25 alleging "massive election fraud" that changed the state’s results in the 2020 election, according to FOX News, claiming that voting machines were a source of fraudulent activity. A Dominion Voting Systems Corp. spokesperson told FOX News that Powell’s claims are without merit.

The lawsuit named Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State and Chair of the Georgia State Election Board Brad Raffensperger among the defendants, according to FOX News.

The Trump campaign's legal team moved to distance itself from Powell after a tumultuous several days in which she made multiple incorrect statements about the voting process, unspooled unsupported and complex conspiracy theories and vowed to "blow up" Georgia with a "biblical" court filing.

"Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity," Giuliani and another lawyer for Trump, Jenna Ellis, said in a statement on Nov. 22.

Chris Krebs, who was recently fired by Trump as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, tweeted on Nov. 22 that "any claims of vote count manipulation" in Georgia "were nonsense from day 1" since the systems in the state had paper records that were validated in the recount.

A federal judge dismissed a Trump campaign lawsuit on Nov. 19 that sought to halt certification of the state’s election, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. Trump-appointed Judge Steven Grimberg issued his ruling, saying Trump’s loss didn’t rise to the level of harm that would stop the certification process.

Trump’s lawyers filed the lawsuit claiming voter irregularities. According to FOX 5, a poll watcher testified that a stack of ballots looked suspicious because it appeared to be uniform and pristine.

A judge in Georgia on Nov. 5 dismissed a lawsuit by the state Republican Party and Trump's campaign that asked him to ensure a coastal county was following state laws on processing absentee ballots.

Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass did not provide an explanation for his decision Nov. 5 at the close of a roughly one-hour hearing. Chatham County includes the heavily Democratic city of Savannah. The suit had raised concerns about 53 absentee ballots that poll observers said were not part of an original batch of ballots. County elections officials testified that all 53 ballots had been received on time.

Georgia became a battleground state in the 2020 election, coming into play during the presidential race as demographics, particularly in the metro Atlanta area, have shifted.

On Nov. 20, Raffensperger certified results reported by the state’s 159 counties that show Biden with 2.47 million votes, Trump with 2.46 million votes and Jorgensen with 62,138.

Trump lawsuit in Arizona

On Dec. 9, a U.S. District Court judge in Arizona dismissed the latest election challenge filed by former Trump legal advisor Sidney Powell claiming "massive election fraud" through the state.

The judge threw out the claims, citing them as "sorely wanting of relevant or reliable evidence."

"Allegations that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court," U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa wrote in the ruling. "They most certainly cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.

"Powell’s Arizona challenge is one of four battleground state lawsuits the attorney filed. The complaint claimed "multiple violations of the Arizona election laws" during the 2020 general election.

On Dec. 4, a Superior Court Judge threw out a Republican bid to undo Biden’s victory in Arizona. The judge also noted the evidence presented at trial wouldn’t reverse Trump’s loss in the state, according to the Associated Press.

Judge Randall Warner denied Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward’s challenge of ballots in metro Phoenix that were duplicated because voters’ earlier ballots were damaged or could not be run through tabulators.

"Poll observers called to testify by Ward said they witnessed problems in the processing of duplicated ballots, but the judge said those problems were pointed out to election workers, who then fixed the mistakes," the Associated Press said.

There is no evidence that the inaccuracies were intentional or part of a fraudulent scheme. They were mistakes. And given both the small number of duplicate ballots and the low error rate, the evidence does not show any impact on the outcome," Warner wrote.

Arizona officials certified the state’s election results on Nov. 30, formalizing Biden’s narrow victory over Trump even as the Republican president’s attorneys continued making claims, without evidence, of fraud in the state’s vote count.

The state GOP had asked a judge to stop Maricopa County from certifying the election results until the party’s lawsuit, seeking a hand recount, is settled, according to the Associated Press. But a judge on Nov. 19 rejected Republicans’ bid to postpone the certification of results and dismissed the party’s legal challenge that sought a new audit of a sampling of ballots.

County leaders said they previously conducted an audit and found no discrepancies.

The state’s GOP request came after the Trump campaign dropped a lawsuit in Arizona’s Maricopa County after finding that Biden’s margin of victory in the state is too big for the disputed ballots to make a difference.

In a filing Nov. 13, the campaign said that "the tabulation of votes statewide has rendered unnecessary a judicial ruling as to the presidential electors."

The suit, filed by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee on Nov. 7, had alleged the county "incorrectly rejected votes" made by in-person voters on Election Day.

It sought a manual inspection of the alleged rejected ballots that were cast in person — though attorneys said the votes in question only totaled 191.

On Nov. 10, an attorney representing Trump’s reelection team asked the Maricopa County Superior Court judge to seal the evidence of their claim to "protect identities of witnesses," which the judge denied. Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Tom Liddy had argued against the sealing of evidence, saying the public has a right to know.

"If you are going to bring a case and claim you have evidence that the election is no good, that there’s systematic failure, that there’s thousands of ballots out there for Donald J. Trump that aren’t being counted, you must make it in the sunshine," Liddy said, according to local news reports.

The lawsuit was announced the same day Arizona was called for Biden by FOX News and the AP. Arizona's Secretary of State Katie Hobbs responded to the lawsuit saying it had no merit and was a tactic to try and stall the election.

Trump lawsuit in Wisconsin

On Dec. 12, U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig dismissed Trump’s federal lawsuit asking the court to order the Republican-controlled Legislature to name Trump the winner over Democrat Joe Biden. The judge said Trump’s arguments "fail as a matter of law and fact."

Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek ruled against a lawsuit by Trump allies who sided with Republican lawmakers instead of voters on casting the state’s electoral, Dec. 11.

"The bottom line here is that the court should do everything to ensure that the will of the voters prevail," the judge said.

Simanek denied every argument Trump made challenging ballots in the state's two largest counties, saying the election was properly administered and there was no wrongdoing as the president alleged.

The Trump campaign was dealt another loss when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that it would not accept a lawsuit by Trump allies who sided with Republican lawmakers instead of voters on casting the state’s electoral votes, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Just a day earlier the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s lawsuit attempting to overturn his loss to Biden in the battleground state on Dec. 3.

Trump filed the lawsuit in Wisconsin on Dec. 1 seeking to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots, alleging irregularities in the way absentee ballots were administered. Trump lost in the state by nearly 20,700 votes.

This filing came a day after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and the chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission certified Biden as the winner of the state's 10 Electoral College votes.

Trump asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, rather than have it start in a lower court, and order Evers to withdraw the certification.

The state's highest court, controlled 4-3 by conservatives, also is considering whether to hear two other lawsuits filed by conservatives seeking to invalidate ballots cast during the presidential election.

Trump repeats many claims he made during a recount of votes in Milwaukee and Dane counties that large swaths of absentee votes were illegally cast. Local officials rejected his claims during the recount, and Trump is challenging procedures that have been in place for years and never been found to be illegal.

Trump is not challenging any ballots cast in conservative counties he won.

The Biden campaign issued a statement calling the lawsuit "completely baseless and not rooted in facts on the ground."

"The hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites targeted by this lawsuit did nothing wrong," Biden campaign spokesman Nate Evans said. "They simply followed longstanding guidance from elections officials issued under the law."

Trump lawsuit in Minnesota

The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a challenge brought by GOP lawmakers to certification of the 2020 election results. A five-page ruling said the candidates and voters who petitioned for an injunction to block certification failed to file their case properly.

"Asserting these claims 2 months after voting started, 3 weeks after voting ended, and less than 24 hours before the State Canvassing Board met to certify the election results is unreasonable," the ruling read.

Biden was certified the winner of the presidential race in Minnesota with 52.5% of the vote compared to Trump’s 45.4%, according to FOX News projections.

Trump recount requests

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Nov. 19 ordered a recount of more than 800,000 ballots cast in two heavily Democratic counties.

Trump paid $3 million and filed a petition for the recount, seeking to undo Biden's victory in the key state. Trump claimed "irregularities" in Milwaukee and Dane counties, which went for Biden by a more than 2-to-1 margin, but no evidence of illegal activity has been presented.

The state does not have automatic recounts, but under Wisconsin law, one can be requested with the required margin of 1% or less. The losing candidate must pay for it but is refunded if the recount changes the election outcome.

On Nov. 24, the fourth day of the recount, 386 absentee ballots cast in Milwaukee that were not opened on Election Day were discovered, a mistake the city’s top elections official attributed to human error.

The city’s top elections official, Claire Woodall-Vogg, said not counting the 386 ballots on Nov. 3 was due to an error by new election inspectors. The unopened ballots were discovered underneath ballots that had been counted, she said. The county board of canvassers voted unanimously to count the ballots as part of the recount.

"If there’s one positive to come out of the recount it’s that indeed that every vote is being counted, including these 386," Woodall-Vogg said.

Milwaukee County completed its recount of presidential ballots Dec. 27, finding only small changes in vote totals.

On Dec. 29, Wisconsin’s Dane County certified its 2020 election results following the recount. County Clerk Scott McDonell tweeted the results, showing Biden with 260,121 votes and Trump receiving 78,794 votes.

The recount further cemented Biden’s win in the state. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Biden netted 132 votes in Milwaukee County and Trump netted 45 votes in Dane County. When taken together, that increased Biden's statewide margin to 20,695 votes out of about 3 million cast."

Trump’s campaign requested a recount of votes in the Georgia presidential race on Nov. 21, a day after state officials certified results showing Biden won the state.

Georgia’s results showed Biden beating Trump by 12,670 votes out of about 5 million cast, or 0.25%.

State law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5%. Election workers already spent days recounting the state’s votes cast in the race — part of a statewide audit to make sure the state's new voting machines counted accurately. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp formalized the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors.

The Trump campaign sent a hand-delivered letter to the secretary of state’s office requesting the recount, meaning Georgia’s votes are being tabulated for a third time. This time, the recount is being done by high-speed scanners and not by hand.

On Dec. 1, a top Georgia elections official lashed out angrily at the rhetoric surrounding the election and the threats of violence that have resulted. Republican Gabriel Sterling specifically called on Trump to rein in his supporters during a routine news conference at the state Capitol.

Sterling admonished the president and Georgia's two U.S. senators, who are both locked in tight runoff races against Democrats and have called on Raffensperger to resign over claims that he mishandled the election.

"Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions," Sterling said, visibly angry. "This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some."

Georgia election leaders confirmed again Dec. 7 that Biden won the state after counting the ballots three times.

This story was reported from Cincinnati. The Associated Press contributed.

2020 Election Politics Donald J. Trump