Trump Election Challenges Hamstrung by Hapless Witnesses
When Team Trumps claims of voter-fraud and ballot-tampering reach a judge, the allegations collapse in often spectacular fashion.
Will Sommer
Published Nov. 14, 2020 12:00AM ET
Donald Trumps last-ditch campaign legal efforts have centered on witnesses who allege that they witnessed voter fraud and other suspicious activity in battleground states across the country. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has brandished stacks of papers detailing what she said were hundreds of affidavits from allegedly aggrieved voters or poll-watchers in TV appearances, and the MAGA faithful have seized on the allegations as proof that Trump secretly won the election.
But when those claims actually reach a judge, the allegations collapse in often spectacular fashionputting one more roadblock in Trumps attempts to wrestle the election away from President-elect Joe Biden.
The latest bruising response to Trumps voter witnesses came Friday in a state court order from Michigan. The Trump campaign had asked Chief Judge Timothy M. Kenny to block the certification of Michigans votes, citing a number of witnesses who alleged seeing suspicious things happening with the ballot count, mostly at Detroits TCF Center.
But when Kenny actually saw the witness claims, he wasnt impressed. In his Friday opinion, Kenny rejected the Trump campaigns request, describing one witness affidavit as rife with speculation and guess-work about sinister motives.
Instead of alleging voter fraud, Kenny said, many of the accusations made by witnesses in fact described routine vote-counting procedures. Had the Republican challengers only attended an optional walk-through training of the site, according to Kenny, they would not have been so alarmed.
More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-election-challenges-hamstrung-by-hapless-witnesses?ref=home