After the 2020 United States presidential election, the campaign for incumbent President Donald Trump and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting, and the vote certification process in 9 states (including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and the District of Columbia.
Nearly all the suits were dismissed or dropped for lack of evidence or lack of standing, including 30 lawsuits that were dismissed by the judge after a hearing on the merits. Among the judges who dismissed the lawsuits were some appointed by Trump himself. Judges, lawyers, and other observers described the suits as "frivolous" and "without merit". In one instance, the Trump campaign and other groups seeking his reelection collectively lost multiple cases in six states on a single day. Only one ruling was initially in Trump's favor: the timing within which first-time Pennsylvania voters must provide proper identification if they wanted to "cure" their ballots. This ruling affected very few votes, and it was later overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Trump, his attorneys, and his supporters falsely asserted widespread election fraud in public statements, but few such assertions were made in court. Every state except Wisconsin met the December 8 statutory "safe harbor" deadline to resolve disputes and certify voting results. The Trump legal team had said it would not consider this election certification deadline as the expiration date for its litigation of the election results. Three days after it was filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court on December 11 declined to hear a case supported by Trump and his Republican allies asking for electoral votes in four states to be rejected.
One suit, Michigan Welfare Rights Org. et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al., was brought by black voter groups in Michigan against Trump and his 2020 presidential campaign. Dominion Voting Systems brought defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, each for $1.3 billion. Smartmatic brought a defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation and its anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro as well as Giuliani and Powell for $2.7 billion. In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, several civil suits were filed against Trump, sometimes in combination with other defendants. The plaintiffs include members of Congress, United States Capitol Police officers, and District of Columbia Metropolitan Police officers.
Two criminal cases have also been filed, The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al., a racketeering case against Trump and 18 other defendants, and United States v. Donald J. Trump, an election obstruction case in the District of Columbia.
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