With Joe Biden on the verge of claiming the presidency as ballots continued to be counted, legal efforts by President Donald Trump to turn the election his way are the equivalent of Hail Mary passes at the end of a football game, according to Dan Urman, who teaches Constitutional law and the modern U.S. Supreme Court at Northeastern.
“But as you know, sometimes Hail Mary passes get caught,” adds Urman, who is also director of hybrid and online programs in the School of Law, and director of the Law and Public Policy minor.
Trump’s campaign filed lawsuits on a variety of fronts Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. Urman believes that Trump’s most promising path to the legal outcome he’s seeking lies in Pennsylvania, whose 20 electoral votes helped Trump earn the presidency in 2016.
Trump is seeking to participate in a Supreme Court case involving Pennsylvania ballots that were received after Election Day. In a ruling last month, by a 4-4 deadlock, the justices left in place a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allowed Pennsylvania to count ballots that arrived up to three days after the election.
The U.S. Supreme Court hinted that it could revisit the case after Election Day. Urman believes the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, appointed recently by the president, could change that decision in Trump’s favor.
