As options dwindle, Trump allies ask court to halt Biden's win in Nevada

[November 18, 2020]  By Jan Wolfe

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign on Tuesday announced a lawsuit to halt President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Nevada, the latest in a flurry of challenges that legal experts have said will not change the election's outcome.

According to a court filing released by the campaign, the lawsuit requests a court order that Trump "be declared the winner of the Election in Nevada," or, alternatively, that the results in the state are annulled and no winner is certified there.

Biden won Nevada by a 33,596-vote margin, according to the Nevada Secretary of State's office.

The legal challenge was formally brought by a group of Republicans known as "electors" who would have been pledged to Trump in the U.S. Electoral College system if he had won Nevada.

In the Electoral College system, electoral votes are allotted to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population. Nevada carries six Electoral College votes. Biden has secured 306 votes to Trump’s 232.

The lawsuit claims, providing no evidence, that "fraud and abuse renders the purported results of the Nevada election illegitimate."

A focus of the complaint is a signature verification machine the Trump campaign has said was flawed. The machine was used in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. The lawsuit also alleged that observers were denied meaningful access to the ballot counting process.

Election staff work in the Clark County Election Center in North Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. November 6, 2020. REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo

The lawsuit appears to be "parroting erroneous allegations made by partisans without first-hand knowledge of the facts," said Dan Kulin, a spokesman for the Clark County Election Department.

"We have not seen their complaint yet; however, it sounds like they are repeating allegations the courts have already rejected," Kulin said.

The campaign and Trump supporters have filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan and others states challenging the Nov. 3 election but have had little success changing vote tallies.

A senior Biden legal adviser has dismissed the litigation as "theatrics, not really lawsuits."

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

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