Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton shot back at officials in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan on Friday in its election challenge.
In a reply filed to the court, Paxton wrote that attorneys general in the four swing states on Thursday did not adequately address any of the issues he raised with the way in which they conducted their elections, instead only accusing him of partisanship. Paxton, whose lawsuit gained the support of President Trump this week, insisted that his goal was not to push Trump’s long-shot bid at reelection.
“Texas does not ask this Court to reelect President Trump, and Texas does not seek to disenfranchise the majority of Defendant States’ voters,” Paxton wrote, adding, “Texas asks this Court to recognize the obvious fact that Defendant States’ maladministration of the 2020 election makes it impossible to know which candidate garnered the majority of lawful votes.”
Paxton asserted that respondents in the four states did “precious little to defend the merits of their actions,” which he claimed violated the Constitution as well as put the integrity of elections in every other state in peril. Paxton concluded that the court should hear the state’s case.
Paxton filed the case late Monday night, alleging that the four swing states had “tainted the integrity” of the presidential election with mail-in ballots. The charge electrified Trump’s allies after the president on Wednesday called the dispute “the big one” on Twitter. Seventeen states, led by Missouri, filed an amicus brief supporting Paxton on Wednesday. Two more states, Arizona and Ohio, added their names to the list Thursday.
On Thursday, 106 Republican members of the House of Representatives also pledged their support to Paxton’s suit.
