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Missouri led a group of 17 states that Wednesday afternoon filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting the Texas lawsuit aimed at delaying the appointment of presidential electors from Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The brief mirrors the argument of the Texas suit in saying that the states acted unconstitutionally when either their judiciaries or executive branches changed their elections laws. The Texas suit, and the states that support it, say that only state legislatures may set laws regarding how states appoint their presidential electors.
The brief, which is officially a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint, also warns that the changes enacted by the state executives and judicial branches opened the states’ elections up to potential fraud.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt led a group of 17 state attorneys general Wednesday in supporting the Texas lawsuit which aims to block electors from Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. (Reuters)
“The Bill of Complaint alleges that non-legislative actors in each Defendant State unconstitutionally abolished or diluted statutory safeguards against fraud enacted by their state Legislatures, in violation of the Presidential Electors Clause,” the brief states.
It continues: “All the unconstitutional changes to election procedures identified in the Bill of Complaint have two common features: (1) They abrogated statutory safeguards against fraud that responsible observers have long recommended for voting by mail, and (2) they did so in a way that predictably conferred partisan advantage on one candidate in the Presidential election.”
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.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Fox News’ Bill Mears and Shannon Bream contributed to this report.
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