NOEL KING, HOST:
President Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits trying to overturn the results of the election, which he lost. The lawsuits haven't been successful. But one of the states seeing the most suits is Georgia. Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting has been following all of them. Good morning, Stephen.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey, Noel.
KING: All right. So Georgia has recertified its results. Joe Biden won the state. And yet there are still some court cases pending. What are they? And where do they stand?
FOWLER: Right. So in the last few weeks, we have seen several lawsuits filed in federal court that those judges have dismissed. And they're being appealed. One of those is from conservative attorney Lin Wood. And he tried to block Georgia's election from being certified. But since that already happened, it was dismissed for being moot. And the other is the so-called Kraken lawsuit from Sidney Powell, a former member of President Trump's legal team, that got dismissed for a whole litany of reasons, including the timing of it and not really suing the proper person. We've had a couple that have been filed in Fulton County Court, which is where Atlanta is, that have tried to overturn the election results or seek a new election. But those got dismissed because they just didn't follow the right rules and procedures. And the one case that we haven't had a hearing yet is one filed by the Trump campaign and Trump himself seeking to, again, overturn the election results.
KING: Stephen, is there a reason that we keep seeing legal challenges in Georgia dismissed without the judges even looking at the evidence that's presented?
FOWLER: Well, that's right. You know, so Georgia law does specify a way that candidates and campaigns can request the new election or seek to overturn the results. There's a very specific court they have to file it in, naming very specific defendants. And in every single case we've seen so far, they haven't followed the rules. And part of that has to do with the fact that none of the lawyers that have been representing plaintiffs suing Georgia have an election law background or an experience. And when you're trying to do something unprecedented like overturn 5 million votes, that's an area of expertise that would probably be helpful to have.
KING: (Laughter) Sure, sure. Let me ask you about one of the latest lawsuits - a big one. The attorney general of Texas filed a suit in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the results in Georgia and in three other battleground states. Now, election and legal experts say this lawsuit has no merit. But I am curious how officials in Georgia are reacting to another state trying to overturn their state's result.
FOWLER: Right. Off the bat, Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, called it constitutionally, legally and factually wrong. The Republican secretary of state who stood up to President Trump and his claims of voter fraud has said that he agrees. But we've really seen just about every other top Republican in Georgia get on board with this, whether it's the U.S. senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler saying they applaud the ruling - Vice President Mike Pence was campaigning in Georgia yesterday, saying God bless Texas. And you've got a bunch of state and federal lawmakers that have signed on to approve this lawsuit, saying they support another state trying to overturn our results.
KING: So interesting, just adding fuel to the fire.
Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting. Thanks for your time, Stephen. We appreciate it.
FOWLER: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
