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The Texas legal action is an extraordinary effort to essentially overturn the result of the presidential election, which President-elect Biden won because of key victories by tens of thousands of votes in the states Texas is suing. It follows numerous losses by President Trump's legal teams and his allies in lower courts as claim after claim of widespread voter fraud that may have affected the result of the election has gone unsubstantiated.
Texas' suit is u n i q u e in that it seeks to take advantage of the Supreme Court's rarely used original jurisdiction to b y p a s s the l o w e r c o u r t s and put the issue directly in front of the justices.
Texas specifically asks the Supreme Court to declare Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia's elections "in violation of the Electors Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution;" declare electoral votes from those states invalid; prevent the states' electors from meeting or being certified; and direct the states to appoint new presidential electors.
The Texas lawsuit is widely considered a longshot to succeed. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, previously panned the Texas suit as fundamentally "wrong."
"With all due respect, the Texas Attorney General is constitutionally, legally and factually wrong about Georgia," a Carr spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News. Carr is the recently named chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
The states that joined the Wednesday brief are Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
They argue that they have an interest in the case because "the unconstitutional administration of elections" in some states dilutes votes in their own states.
"When non-legislative actors in other States encroach on the authority of the 'Legislature thereof' in that State to administer a Presidential election, they threaten the liberty, not just of their own citizens, but of every citizen of the United States who casts a lawful ballot in that election—including the citizens of amici States," the Wednesday brief says.
The four states being sued have until 3 p.m. Thursday to file a response with the Supreme Court.
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