December 11, 2020

NM AG signs onto brief opposing TX suit that seeks to overturn presidential election

Laura Paskus

The U.S. Supreme Court.

Update: The Supreme Court dismissed the case on Friday. The story, as originally written, continues below.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas signed onto an amicus brief from the New York Attorney General opposing a Texas lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the election results in four states won by Democrat Joe Biden.

The lawsuit from Texas, which received the support of 17 Republican attorneys general and over 100 Republican members of the U.S. House, is a longshot attempt to have the U.S. Supreme Court overturn certified victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia by Biden and hand the victory to incumbent Donald Trump despite the Republican receiving fewer votes. The suit claims that changes in election procedures in those states led to an unfair election—and called for millions of votes to be invalidated based on how they were cast.

Trump and allies have consistently lost court battles seeking to change election results in states around the country.

On Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James and nearly two dozen other attorneys general filed a brief opposing the Texas lawsuit. Balderas signed onto that amicus brief with the other Democratic attorneys general.

The New Mexico attorney general’s office slammed the Texas lawsuit.

“The Attorney General of Texas is clearly pandering and not following the rule of law,” spokesman Matt Baca said in a statement on Friday. “The Supreme Court will not invalidate the ballots of millions of voters.”

On Thursday, the attorneys general in the four affected states filed responses.

“The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,” Pennsylvania’s Attorney General’s office wrote.

The states also argued that if the Supreme Court granted the Texas resuest, it would invite a rash of lawsuits from states challenging other states’ elections over laws and rules.

The Republican Party of New Mexico announced on Thursday night they supported the suit to nullify the millions of votes, citing conspiracy theories.

“We stand by the Texas lawsuit in an effort to really examine what happened in many states on Election Day,” Republican Party of New Mexico Chairman Steve Pearce said in a statement. “There are too many instances where Biden votes suddenly appear. There’s even video in one state where poll workers discover crates of votes hidden under tables after the room is emptied.”

The video cited by Pearce was debunked earlier this month, though it was pushed by far-right websites.

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