AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today filed a lawsuit against four battleground states in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to stop the electoral college from finalizing Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race.
Paxton alleges the four states, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.
“Trust in the integrity of our election processes is sacrosanct and binds our citizenry and the States in this Union together,” Paxton said. “Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin destroyed that trust and compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election.
According to the filing, the battleground states flooded their people with unlawful ballot applications and ballots while ignoring statutory requirements as to how they were received, evaluated and counted.
“The states violated statutes enacted by their duly elected legislatures, thereby violating the constitution,” Paxton said. “By ignoring both state and federal law, these states have not only tainted the integrity of their own citizens’ vote, but of Texas and every other state that held lawful elections. Their failure to abide by the rule of law casts a dark shadow of doubt over the outcome of the entire election.
“We now ask that the Supreme Court step in to correct this egregious error.”
Elections for federal office must comport with federal constitutional standards. For presidential elections, each state must appoint its electors to the electoral college in a manner that complies with the constitution.
The Electors Clause requirement that only state legislatures may set the rules governing the appointment of electors and elections and cannot be delegated to local officials.
Paxton says the majority of the rushed decisions, made by local officials, were not approved by the state legislatures, thereby circumventing the constitution.
Former Kansas AG Phill Kline, who has filed numerous challenges to the presidential election results, says the “lawless nature” of the 2020 election is on full display in the suit filed by Texas.
“There was a coordinated and unprecedented effort of private interests improperly joining with leftist government officials to illegally support the democrat ticket in this election,” Kline said. “This involved the sharing of sensitive citizen information with the private sector and the flow of more than $500 million from the private sector to targeted government officials and local governments. This resulted in a lawless election in which the American people cannot have confidence. We appreciate Texas taking the lead in this litigation."