Court rejects Trump lawsuit over botched paperwork — as Biden is declared the Georgia winner again

In Georgia, challenges to President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election have not been going well for President Donald Trump and his supporters. Two recounts have demonstrated that Biden won the state's 16 electoral votes. And the Fulton County Superior Court, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, has rejected a Trump campaign lawsuit because the attorneys failed to pay the necessary filing fee or fill out the paperwork correctly.

Last week, Trump's campaign filed a new Georgia-related lawsuit, alleging that it could prove widespread voter fraud in that state. The lawsuit was announced by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the campaign's top lawyer, and another campaign lawyer, Ray Smith.

The campaign and its allies have filed literally dozens of these types of lawsuits, which have consistently gone down to humiliating defeat when they actually make it before a judge. This is because Trump's complaints about the election are based on lies and disinformation.

Constitution reporter David Wickert notes, "Among other things, they said it would reveal tens of thousands of ineligible voters — felons, people who registered when they were underage, out-of-state residents and others — cast ballots in the November election. The (Georgia) Secretary of State's Office has repeatedly denied any widespread voting fraud in Georgia."

But on Monday, the Fulton County Superior Court, according to Wickert, said that Trump campaign attorneys "did not pay the appropriate filing fee or fully complete the case information form." And Smith, in response, said that the fee will be paid.

This rejection by the superior court in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, is one of many election results challenges in Georgia that has gone badly for Trump and his supporters. In Georgia, Judge Timothy C. Batten slammed a lawsuit by pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, saying that they waited too long to file the lawsuit and rejecting their request to decertify the presidential election results in Georgia.

Powell and Wood, in that lawsuit, claimed that equipment by Dominion Voting Systems was used in Georgia to swing the election results in Biden's favor. The attorneys have preposterously claimed that in Venezuela, Dominion's equipment was used to help leftist President Hugo Chavez (who died in 2013) steal votes — and Dominion, in a press release, stressed that its equipment has never even been used in the South American country.

That Powell/Wood lawsuit was separate from the Trump campaign, although Powell and Wood are both aggressive Trump supporters. Powell's antics are so beyond the pale that even Trump's legal team has distanced itself from her. In an official statement in November, Giuliani and Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis said, "Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own. She is not a member of the Trump legal team. She is also not a lawyer for the president in his personal capacity."

In Georgia, Biden's victory over Trump has been proven three times — first in the election, then in two recounts. And on Monday, following the second recount, Biden's victory in that state was recertified.

On Saturday, a federal appeals court rejected one of Wood's lawsuits. Wood, in one of his tweets, wrote that Trump should declare martial law because of widespread voter fraud — which is something he has offered no concrete proof of.