Federal judge in Georgia tosses pro-Trump suit alleging election conspiracy

Dec. 7 (UPI) — A federal judge in Georgia on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by a former Trump campaign attorney that sought to overturn the results of the presidential election in the state.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten dismissed the suit filed by attorney Sidney Powell, which alleged a conspiracy to favor President-elect Joe Biden that revolved around software made by Dominion Voting Systems.

The suit asked that the results of the election be invalidated.

At a hearing in Atlanta Monday, Batten dismissed the legal challenge.

“They want this court to substitute its judgment for the 2.5 million voters who voted for Biden,” Batten said. “This I’m unwilling to do.”

Trump’s campaign distanced itself from Powell last month after she appeared at several news conferences with lead campaign attorney Rudolph Giuliani and repeatedly made bizarre, wide-ranging and unfounded claims of a secret conspiracy to deny President Donald Trump a second term.

Powell could appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed a similar suit brought by a different Trump-supporting attorney over the weekend.

Earlier Monday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he will recertify Biden’s win in the state following a recount that was completed last week.

Raffensperger’s declaration came one day before the federal “safe harbor” deadline, by which secretaries of state nationwide must certify the results ahead of the Electoral College’s meeting a week from now to formally elect Biden.

Raffensperger first certified election results late last month following a hand recount of about 5 million votes. Biden won the state’s 16 electoral votes by earning about 12,700 ballots more than Trump.

“Today the secretary of state’s office will be recertifying our state’s election results,” he told reporters Monday in Atlanta.

Trump has repeatedly made false claims of voter fraud since the election, but Raffensperger emphasized that there’s no evidence of fraud or malfeasance.

“It’s been 34 days since the election on Nov. 3,” he said. “We have now counted legally cast ballots three times and the results remain unchanged.”

Saturday, Trump criticized Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp for refusing his call for a special session to assign Republican electors and give the electoral votes to Trump.

Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan both said Sunday they will not call a special session and overturn the results, which a few GOP state senators also asked for. They said Georgia law clearly says an alternative method for choosing electors can only be made if the election was not held on the date set by federal law.

“While we understand four members of the Georgia Senate are requesting the convening of a special session of the General Assembly, doing this in order to select a separate slate of presidential electors is not an option that is allowed under the state or federal law,” Kemp and Duncan said.

They noted that the law decided in the 1960s that Georgia’s electors are determined by the state popular vote and “any attempt by the legislature to retroactively change that process for the Nov. 3rd election would be unconstitutional and immediately enjoined by the courts, resulting in a long legal dispute and no short-term resolution.”

“The governor and I have spoken often about this and calling the General Assembly back in at this point would be almost along the lines of a solution trying to find a problem,” Duncan told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday.

“And we’re certainly not going to move the goalposts at this point in the election. We are going to continue to follow the letter of the law, which gives us a very clear-cut direction as to how to execute an election.”

Kemp and Duncan said the judicial systems is the “only viable — and quickest — option” to dispute the state’s election results.

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