Texas files desperate bid with Supreme Court asking justices to allow lawsuit against battleground states

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the Supreme Court late Monday night to take up a lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, arguing that the battleground states exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws. He seeks to block election results from the states.

It is the latest long shot petition to reach the high court challenging election results and faces tough odds before the justices.

If a state seeks to sue another state it can go directly to the Supreme Court but it would take five justices to agree to take up the matter.

“This is an unextraordinary, unprecedented and offensive filing,” said CNN legal analyst Steve Vladeck. “The state of Texas has no business telling other states how to conduct their elections."
In the new filing, which has yet to be docketed at the high court, Paxton said that a “dark cloud” hangs over the 2020 Presidential election.

“Lawful elections are at the heart of our constitutional democracy,” Paxton argued. He said that “using the Covid-19 pandemic as a justification” officials in the battle ground states “usurped their legislatures’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their state’s election statutes.” He said they did so through “executive fiat”. He pointed specifically to mail in ballots which he said were placed “in drop boxes,” with “little to know chain of custody” which weakened signature verification and witness requirements which he called “the strongest security measures protecting the integrity of the vote.”