US Supreme Court rejects lawsuit to overturn presidential election results
Washington, Dec 12: The US Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas, along with 17 other States, and backed by President Donald Trump seeking to overturn the results of the presidential elections in several key battleground States won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden who now is the president-elect.
Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognisable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot, the Supreme Court said in a brief unsigned order on Thursday, delivering a devastating blow to the efforts of Trump to challenge and overturn the election results decisively won by Biden.
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they believed the court was required to hear the case but expressed no position on Texas' claim. As many as 126 Republican Congressmen had also backed the lawsuit.
Biden not only bagged the most popular votes in the presidential electoral history of the United States, his tally in the electoral college was also more than 300 out of the 538 votes. The halfway mark is 270. The election results are scheduled to be formally certified next week.
Trump and his campaign team have been making unsubstantiated allegations of massive voter fraud and electoral malpractice. State election officials and mainstream media say they have not found any such evidence.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his lawsuit has alleged that four battle ground States -- Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- had violated their own state laws, and thus the US Constitution. The lawsuit urged the court to bar these four states from casting their electoral votes for President-elect Biden and as such shift the selection of electors to the States' legislatures.
Trump had said he expected to prevail in the Supreme Court.
Pennsylvania, in its response to the lawsuit, alleged that Texas wanted the justices to disregard the Constitution, not interpret it. It said Texas' filings attempted to construct a surreal alternate reality.
Texas's effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated, said the response filed by the State of Pennsylvania.
Reacting to the development, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said, The Court has rightly dismissed out of hand the extreme, unlawful and undemocratic GOP lawsuit to overturn the will of millions of American voters.
She said the Republican Members that signed the lawsuit brought dishonor to the House.
Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions.
The pandemic is raging, with nearly 300,000 having died and tens of millions having lost jobs. Strong, unified action is needed to crush the virus, and Republicans must once and for all end their election subversion immediately, Pelosi said in a statement.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the Supreme Court's decision should put an end to Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the presidential election that he lost.
The results are clear, there was no widespread fraud, and Joe Biden is the next President of the United States, he said.
The 126 House Republicans who signed on in support of this case should be ashamed of themselves for putting their own political interests before the interests of our nation, the Constitution, and our democratic principles, Hoyer said.
Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said this concept of one state trying to challenge the election systems of other states is fully at odds with our democratic process.
The highest court in the land rightfully put an end to a lawsuit that constituted a desperate attempt to discount ballots cast by millions of American voters. Any other outcome would have signaled the death of core principles that lie at the heart of American democracy, he said.
Clarke said, This sends a strong signal that it's time for President Trump and his allies to shut down remaining cases clogging the courts.
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Case registered over social media posts 'threatening' Kerala CM’s security officer
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): A case has been registered and a probe launched into social media posts allegedly threatening a member of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s security team with consequences once the UDF comes to power, officials said on Sunday.
The Thiruvananthapuram City Cyber Police registered the case based on a complaint filed by Chief Minister’s security staff member Sandeep Sasidharan.
The Congress had earlier alleged that Sandeep and another officer, Anil Kumar, brutally assaulted two Youth Congress-KSU activists including using flower pot when they protested against the Chief Minister during the Navakerala Sadas programme in Alappuzha in 2023.
A subsequent probe was conducted against both officers, and the Crime Branch later gave them a clean chit.
Recently, following the conclusion of the state assembly election on April 9, several social media posts allegedly made by Congress, Youth Congress and KSU activists claimed that revenge would be taken once the LDF government is removed and the UDF comes to power.
Police said cases have been registered against Facebook accounts named Arun Rajendran, Tom Kuriakose, Yaser KP, Sony Panamthanam, Sarath Pillai, KSU Kanjiramkulam, Rahul John C and Youth Congress Battle.
According to the FIR, the complainant’s photograph and name were used in several social media posts threatening him with consequences and containing abusive language.
Police said the social media account holders have been identified and will soon be summoned as part of the investigation.
The case has been registered under Sections 296(b) (uttering obscene words causing public annoyance), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), and 3(5) (acts done by several persons) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
