Trump Campaign Drops Major Part of Its Lawsuit Challenging Pennsylvania Election Results

President Donald Trump's campaign has dropped a central part of its lawsuit seeking to stop the certification of election results in Pennsylvania. The state, which favored Trump in 2016, has been called by numerous outlets for President-elect Joe Biden, bringing his total electoral vote count to 273, surpassing the required 270 to become president. Biden has since been projected to win a total of 306 electoral votes.

After filing the 85-page lawsuit in federal district court in Pennsylvania on Nov. 10, the Associated Press reports that Trump's campaign on Sunday withdrew the portion of the lawsuit alleging that Allegheny County and Philadelphia received and processed more than 680,000 mail-in and absentee ballots without review by political parties and candidates. That allegation has been a central part of the president's argument that the 2020 election was rattled by widespread voter fraud, though it had quickly been denied by the office of Gov. Tom Wolf, which said shortly after the suit was filed that ballot watchers from all parties have observers throughout the process and that "any insinuation otherwise is a lie." The decision to withdraw the allegation came just ahead of a Tuesday hearing on the case.

The campaign is maintaining other allegations made in the suit, which names Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and the boards of elections in Allegheny, Centre, Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia, Montgomery and Northampton counties. The now slimmed-down lawsuit centers on claims that Republicans were "illegally disadvantaged" while Democratic voters were treated more favorably. The suit alleges that "Democratic-heavy counties" allowed voters to fix mistakes on their mail-in ballots, a process called "curing." The suit states that Republican-heavy counties "followed the law and did not provide a notice and cure process, disenfranchising many."

According to Cliff Levine, a lawyer representing the Democratic National Committee, which is seeking to intervene, it is unclear how many voters were given the chance to fix their ballot. Levin said that the number was minimal and far fewer than the margin of 70,000 votes that separates Biden and Trump in the state. Levin said, "the numbers aren't even close to the margin between the two candidates, not even close."

Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania's top election official, on Sunday asked the judge to dismiss the case. The state's lawyers wrote that the lawsuit contains no "plausible claim for relief on any legal theory."

The lawsuit comes as the president continues to decry the election results. Although he has remained out of the public in the days since the election, he has lambasted the results on social media, declaring that he will win and continue to spread falsehoods about voter fraud without providing information. Trump has refused to concede and his campaign has not begun the transition of power.