Supreme Court Rejects Texas Bid to Overturn Election Results

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the bid by Texas and President Donald Trump to nullify the election results in four pivotal states in an abrupt order that could be the legal gravestone for his drive to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

The justices refused to let Texas file a lawsuit to challenge Biden’s wins in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. The order clears those states to cast their votes for Biden in the Electoral College Monday.

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections,” the court said in a two-paragraph order.

No justice publicly dissented from that conclusion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have let Texas file the suit, noting that they have long maintained they think the Supreme Court has no choice but to allow a suit by one state against another. They said they were expressing no view on any other issue.

The decision ends a lawsuit hailed by Trump as “the big one,” and it decimates his oft-expressed dream of vindication at the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and three justices he appointed. The third of those appointees, Amy Coney Barrett, was rushed through the Senate confirmation process with Trump saying her vote would be needed to resolve any election disputes.

Trump has spent months trying to shake the nation’s faith in the integrity of its voting systems, repeatedly claiming before Nov. 3 that the election would be rigged and then saying afterward it had been, without ever producing evidence to back up those claims in court.

Dozens of lower courts rejected cases pressed by Trump and his allies. Members of the Trump administration, including Attorney General Bill Barr, have said they haven’t found any instances of widespread fraud.

Texas, with Trump’s support, sought an extraordinary last-minute intervention by the high court. Texas claimed its rights were violated because the four states unconstitutionally expanded mail voting, opening up their elections to fraud and irregularities.

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