Trump Voters End Week With Courtroom Losses in Nevada, Minnesota
Minnesota Supreme Court Tosses Republican Election Lawsuit
(Bloomberg) -- Courts in Nevada and Minnesota handed supporters of President Donald Trump two more losses, dismissing lawsuits seeking to decertify President-elect Joe Biden’s victories in those states.
A state-court judge in Nevada on Friday threw out a suit brought by six Republican voters who requested a court order nullifying Biden’s victory or declaring Trump the winner, saying they utterly failed to meet the burden of producing “credible and relevant evidence” of massive voter fraud.
Hours earlier, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a Republican-led suit that aimed to decertify Biden’s victory in that state, ruling the case had been filed too late to challenge mail-in-voting rules that were made public long before the Nov. 3 election.
Both were states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and that the Trump campaign had hoped to flip in this election. Biden won Minnesota by more than 200,000 votes, greatly expanding Clinton’s narrow margin. He won Nevada by more than 30,000 votes.
District Judge James Russell in Carson City, Nevada, said GOP witnesses couldn’t prove their claims that tried to link suspicious activity to Biden’s campaign. The ruling repeatedly said the plaintiffs failed to submit proof “under any standard of evidence.”
Russell said one witness who claimed to have witnessed “ballot stuffing” occurring next to a Biden campaign bus “in broad daylight” could not be corroborated by anyone and was “not credible.”
The Minnesota suit was filed Nov. 24 by plaintiffs including Tyler Kistner, an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress. Chief Justice Lorie Gildea said it was filed too late, just before Minnesota certified the election result.
“Asserting these claims two months after voting started, three weeks after voting ended, and less than 24 hours before the State Canvassing Board met to certify the election results is unreasonable,” Gildea wrote.
The judge also rejected the plaintiffs’ bid for a recount, saying it would “cast an unacceptable degree of uncertainty over the election, potentially leaving Minnesotans without adequate elected representation.”
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