Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Aug 17, 2026

EXPLAINER: A look at Trump's long-shot legal challenges

EXPLAINER: A look at Trump's long-shot legal challenges

As President Donald Trump continues to push falsehoods about the election, his legal team has so far failed to gain any traction in court without evidence of widespread fraud, which experts widely agree doesn’t exist.

Despite that, Trump and his Republican allies are pressing forward with several cases aimed at blocking or delaying the certification of election results in key battleground states won by President-elect Joe Biden. Republicans are complaining that, among other things, their observers weren’t allowed to properly review the processing of ballots.

Experts say Trump has almost no chance of reversing the election. But his repeated baseless claims that the race was rigged is undermining public confidence in the election system while instilling in his supporters the idea that Biden will be an illegitimate president.

Where Republican election challenges stand in six states:

ARIZONA


THE CASE: The Arizona Republican Party is trying to block the certification of the election results in the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, until the court rules on the party’s lawsuit asking for a new hand count of a sampling of ballots. An audit already completed by the county found no discrepancies, officials said.

WHAT HAPPENED: The judge has not issued a decision. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.

In a separate case, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee had sought to delay the certification of election results in Maricopa County. Republicans asked for the manual inspection of ballots in metro Phoenix, alleging that some votes were improperly rejected. A judge dismissed the case on Nov. 13 after the campaign’s lawyers acknowledged the small number of ballots at issue wouldn’t change the outcome of how Arizona voted for president.

GEORGIA


THE CASE: A high-profile conservative attorney, L. Lin Wood Jr., has sued in an attempt to block the certification of election results in Georgia. Wood alleges Georgia illegally changed the process for handling absentee ballots. Wood's lawsuit takes aim at a legal settlement signed earlier this year that addresses accusations about a lack of statewide standards for judging signatures on absentee ballot envelopes. Georgia’s deputy secretary of state has called Wood’s case a “silly, baseless claim.”

WHAT HAPPENED: A judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider a request for a temporary restraining order to halt certification.

MICHIGAN


THE CASE: Trump’s campaign is trying to block the certification of election results in the state, alleging that election officials “allowed fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election.” Trump’s legal team alleges that their observers were prevented from being able to properly watch the vote counting, that ineligible ballots were counted and that Republican challenges to ballots were ignored.

Another lawsuit filed this week on behalf of two poll challengers asks a court to halt the certification of election results until an independent audit is completed to “ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election."

WHAT HAPPENED: There have been no decisions in either case. Judges have already swatted down several other Republican efforts to block certification in the Detroit area. Wayne County, which is home to Detroit, unanimously certified its election results on Tuesday, hours after Republicans first blocked formal approval of voters’ intentions.

NEVADA


THE CASE: Trump’s campaign is asking a judge to nullify Nevada’s election results or set them aside and declare him the winner, arguing that illegal or improper votes were cast and the use of optical scanning to process signatures on mail-in ballots violated state law. The Trump lawsuit, filed Tuesday, rehashes arguments that judges in Nevada and elsewhere have already rejected. It claims that votes were cast on behalf of dead people, that election observers weren’t allowed to witness “key points” of processing and that people on American Indian territories were illegally given incentives to vote.

In a separate court filing this week, a voting watchdog group led by a conservative former state lawmaker wants a judge to block statewide certification of the election.

WHAT HAPPENED: There have been no rulings in either case.

PENNSYLVANIA


THE CASE: A Trump campaign case aims to stop the state from certifying the election, alleging Philadelphia and six counties wrongly allowed voters to correct problems with mail-in ballots that were otherwise going to be disqualified for a technicality, like lacking a secrecy envelope or a signature. The total number of affected ballots was not expected to come anywhere close to Biden’s margin of more than 80,000 votes.

WHAT HAPPENED: Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, signed onto the case this week after others abruptly withdrew, and the former New York City mayor argued in court on Tuesday for the first time since the 1990s. Giuliani made wild, unsupported allegations of a nationwide conspiracy by Democrats to steal the election. The judge did not immediately issue a ruling and canceled a hearing that was set for Thursday but set out a schedule for both sides to make new filings this week.

WISCONSIN


THE CASE: Trump’s campaign on Wednesday filed for a recount in the counties that cover Milwaukee and Madison, both Democratic strongholds. It alleged - again without evidence - that absentee ballots were illegally altered or issued and that government officials violated state law.

WHAT HAPPENED: Biden leads Trump by 20,000 votes statewide. The recount requested by Trump will begin Friday and has to be complete by Dec. 1, the deadline for the vote to be certified at the state level. State and local elections officials reiterated that there was no evidence to back up the claims Trump was making.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Google Launches Pixel 11 With Gemini AI at the Center of Its Hardware Strategy
Reform UK Unveils Plan to Cut Welfare Spending by More Than £50 Billion a Year
Prime Minister Andy Burnham Praised Extinction Rebellion for Doing a 'Great Service'
UK Wildfire Phone Alert Triggers Backlash as Users Switch Off Emergency Warnings
Heathrow Roads Reopen After Burst Water Main Floods Access to Terminals 2 and 3
Former NBA Players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White Say They Will Enter 2027 WNBA Draft
Former Cambridge Professor Jason Arday Found Dead Days After Resigning Amid Plagiarism Row
US Appeals Court Rules AI Agent's Website Actions Are Legally Attributed to the User
France's Constitutional Council Blocks Social Media Ban for Children Under 15
Liechtenstein Changes Royal Succession Rules to Allow Women to Inherit the Throne
Women Allege Rape and Sexual Abuse at British Army College for Teenage Recruits
Minnesota: Two independent investigators posed as Muslims (one wearing a burqa) and showed how they could vote in elections without identification.
China’s Kimi Launches AI-Focused Credit Card With Agricultural Bank of China and American Express
Former Labour Adviser Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for China Held Privileged Access as Top Party Donor
Turkish Parliament Passes Landmark Bill Granting Conditional Amnesty to Disarmed PKK Members
Donald Trump Warns FIFA Against Ousting Gianni Infantino Amid Revolt by Global Football Leaders
Jeff Bezos Joins Investor Group Closing In on $6 Billion Liverpool FC Stake
UK Councils to Receive Sweeping Planning Powers to Ban New Vape and Betting Shops
Russia’s A7 Builds a State-Linked Payments Network Beyond Western Sanctions
Hyper-Realistic Reborn Dolls Draw Collectors Seeking Comfort and Craft
Gen Z Cuts Back on Dating as a Night Out Nears $200
Patients Turn to Artificial Intelligence for Therapy as Psychiatrists Warn of Privacy and Clinical Risks
Couples Embrace ‘Sleep Divorce’ to Protect Rest and Reduce Tension
Meta Ordered to Pay $567 Million and Change Facebook and Instagram Safeguards for Children
Up to only 10 Months in Prison for Swedish Officer’s Murderer Sparks Anger
Success: Nvidia Turned Gaming Chips Into the Engine of the AI Boom
Jorge Messi, Lionel Messi’s Father and Longtime Agent, Dies at 68
AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Power, Not Just Nvidia Chips
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Meta Raises AI Spending Target to as Much as $145bn Despite Pressure Over Returns
Danube Drought Exposes Nazi Wrecks and Pushes Central Europe’s Power System to the Brink
Joe Biden’s Cancer Has Spread Beyond His Bones, Hunter Biden Says
Air Traffic Control Outage Grounded Flights Across the Midwest
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Why Markets May Look Quiet in August After Big Tech Earnings
Australian Crew Evacuates Seriously Ill American From Antarctica in Midwinter Darkness
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
UK Drought Cuts Harvests and Raises Food-Security Fears
UFO: Pentagon Releases Video of Unidentified Object Tracked Over Middle East
US Health Secretary: “I’m Not Afraid of Germs — I Used to Snort Cocaine Off Toilet Seats”
Ukraine Tells Senate Republicans Its Drone War Offers a Blueprint for America
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Trump Keeps Hegseth at Pentagon While Leaving Door Open for DeSantis
UK Clears Paramount’s Warner Bros. Discovery Deal, but US Trial Looms
UK Prosecutors Add 38 Charges Against Andrew and Tristan Tate
Taiwan’s President Joins Wartime Command Drill as China Pressure Grows
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan Sign Mutual-Defence Pact
HMRC’s 2029 Tax Shift Could Overlap Old and New Self-Assessment Bills
×