Trump campaign lawyers have challenged the validity of 180 votes in Maricopa County, Arizona in their quest to overturn the state tilting to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, according to KPNX NBC-12 in Phoenix.
The problem with that tactic: incumbent Donald Trump trails Biden in the state by more than 12,000 votes.
Maricopa County, in which nearly two-thirds of the state’s ballots are cast, had more than 2 million votes cast. The number being challenged by the Trump campaign is 0.0086% of the ballots from the county.
Trump’s attorneys claimed that regardless of the raw number of ballots challenged, the case should proceed because it could influence the outcome of down ballot races.
The judge hearing he case denied the campaign’s motion to keep all the records of the hearings sealed. The campaign requested the action to protect the identification of the witnesses they plan to call.
“If you are going to bring a case and claim you have evidence that the election is no good, that there’s systematic failure, that there’s thousands of ballots out there for Donald J. Trump that aren’t being counted, you must make it in the sunshine,” Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Tom Liddy said. “The people have the right to know their election is honest and fair and accurate and the last thing we need is green, fleshy food for the beasts of the conspiracy theorists that there was secret evidence in a secret court hearing.”
The judge ruled that the records of hearings and evidence be open to the public, with identification of some witnesses redacted when released.