President Trump’s campaign on Friday lost its appeal in the legal battle to contest Pennsylvania’s already-certified election results.
A federal appeals court in Philadelphia upheld a previous ruling that dismissed the campaign’s case to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its election results showing former Vice President Joe Biden winning the state.
The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that “the Campaign’s claims [of widespread voter fraud in the state] have no merit,” according to the court’s opinion.
“Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy,” Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote in the 21-page opinion, according to the AP. “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
The three judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, determined that District Judge Matthew Brann’s order from last week was justified in rejecting the Trump’s campaign’s lawsuit.
But the Trump campaign has promised to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, The Associated Press reported. The campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has led the campaign’s efforts to spread unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the election. But Friday’s opinion noted that when he argued in front of Brann last week, Giuliani said the campaign “doesn’t plead fraud” in the case.
Brann had issued a scathing ruling against the campaign last week, saying it presented “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations [that were] unsupported by evidence.”
The president condemned Brann over Twitter and vowed to appeal the case, which the campaign officially filed for on Sunday.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s opinion was released four days after Pennsylvania officials certified the state’s election results, with Biden defeating Trump by more than 80,000 votes.
The battle over Pennsylvania’s election results is one of several the campaign launched after Election Day, contesting the vote in swing states by alleging voter fraud. Biden is expected to win the Electoral College by the same margin of votes that Trump won by in 2016.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris earned almost 80 million votes, more than any other presidential ticket in U.S. history. Trump would have to overturn the results in several states in order to retain the presidency, which is extremely unlikely.