ATLANTA:
President Donald Trump
has lost his latest legal challenge seeking to overturn Georgia's election results, with the
state Supreme Court
's rejection late Saturday of a case from Trump's campaign and Georgia Republican Party Chairman
David Shafer
.
The suit - similar to other Trump team legal challenges, which made
baseless allegations
of widespread fraud in Georgia's presidential election - was initially filed Dec. 4, then rejected by the Fulton County Superior Court because the paperwork was improperly completed and it lacked the appropriate filing fees.
The case was subsequently appealed directly to the state Supreme Court, asking justices to consider the case before Monday's meeting of the Electoral College. In a brief order, justices wrote that “petitioners have not shown that this is one of those extremely rare cases that would invoke our original jurisdiction." It's the latest legal setback in the president's efforts to overturn the election results.
On Friday
the U.S. Supreme Court
rejected a lawsuit backed by Trump seeking to overturn
Democrat Joe Biden
's election victory, a move that ended a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation's highest court.
Even as lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies have been rejected around the country, the president has continued to make repeated baseless claims of widespread fraud.
In Georgia, he has rained criticism on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both fellow Republicans. Raffensperger has been steadfast in his defense of the integrity of the election in the state, and Kemp has said he has no power to intervene in elections.
Results certified by Raffensperger last month showed that Biden led by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25% of the roughly 5 million ballots cast. An audit involving a hand count of the paper ballots also showed Biden won.