The federal judge of Pennsylvania has ordered the Trump campaign to submit to court evidence of their claim on mail-in voting fraud.
Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan has given the Trump campaign and the Republican Party until Friday to submit evidence of mail-in voting fraud. This is to support their claim in a high-profile case against 67 counties in Pennsylvania, to which the Democratic Party and the Sierra Club have intervened in.
Judge Ranja’s decision on mail-in voting fraud claim
Courthousenews provides a copy of the Pennsylvania federal judge—a Trump appointee—decision on granting the motion to compel Trump’s campaign for documents or evidence supporting their mail-in voting fraud claim. An excerpt of the decision reads:
“[T]he Court finds that instances of voter fraud are relevant to the claims and defenses in this case, particularly since Plaintiffs are reserving their right to introduce such evidence or retain an expert regarding the same. Plaintiffs shall produce such evidence in their possession, and if they have none, state as much.”
CNN notes that the Democrats had asked for supporting documents from the Republican Party on the “steps” of their study that hints possible fraud associated with the “use of dropboxes, ballot collection and mailed-in ballots in the primary elections.”
Courtnewshouse further reports that Judge Ranjan’s order came the same day Trump did an interview with Fox Business Network, wherein he strongly voiced out his dissent against the ” Democrat-led effort to boost funding for the U.S. Postal Service.”
Trump said on Thursday that he opposes the US$25 billion funding from the United States Postal Service (USPS), to prevent the money to be used for mail-in voting during the 2020 U.S. elections this November, per a separate report from CNN.
Trump was quoted from a Fox News interview saying:
“They want three and a half billion dollars for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically. They want three and a half billion dollars for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion, billion, for the Post Office. Now they need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”
The president believes that if the Post Office doesn’t get the funding, the universal mail-in voting won’t happen as they are not equipped enough to do so. However, reports from experts have repeatedly confirmed that there is no voter fraud in the U.S. elections.
Voting by mail has been the process since the Civil War. The Democrats reportedly wrote to the court on how this high profile lawsuit is “an attempt to spark fear” on unproven claims by the Trump campaign.
A federal judge appointed by Trump gives the president’s campaign one day to turn over evidence to support its claims of widespread mail-in voting fraud or admit that it doesn’t exist https://t.co/rcaAGTsIQL
— Bloomberg (@business) August 13, 2020
Trump’s lawsuit against the 67 counties
As a quick background, it is important to note that this lawsuit was sparked by the Trump campaign back in June against the 67 county election boards, including Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar.
Last year, a Pennsylvania law was passed, per CBS Pittsburgh, that “expanded mail-in ballot options.” The publication further notes that 1.8 million voters have applied for the mail-in ballot or the absentee ballot.
The lawsuit claims, as quoted by Courthousenews:
Contrary to the direction of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, defendants have sacrificed the sanctity of in-person voting at the altar of unmonitored mail-in voting and have exponentially enhanced the threat that fraudulent or otherwise ineligible ballots will be cast and counted in the upcoming general election.
With the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, there was a noticeable surge in demand for the mail-in ballot within the Pennsylvania state. This gives the people an alternative to exercising their right to vote without doing it in-person.
Featured image courtesy of Evan El-Amin/Shutterstock