Trump campaign appeal in Michigan not accepted, called 'defective'
The Trump campaign suffered another set-back in their effort to mount a legal challenge to the presidential election -- this time in Michigan.
On Friday, the campaign filed an appeal to an earlier ruling that denied their complaint regarding the access poll observers were getting to watch mail-in ballot processing. But Monday, the Michigan Court of Appeals said they still have not accepted the appeal, calling it "defective" because it lacked key documents.
John Nevin, the communications director for the Michigan Supreme Court, told ABC News that the appeal will not be considered by the court until the missing documents, which include a copy of the judgement order, a copy of the registrar of actions, a copy of the transcript and -- most importantly -- a copy of the brief, have been filed.
"It's missing the most important part," Nevin said.
Mark F. Hearne II, the lawyer on the case, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
In this suit, the campaign was seeking to have Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson direct local clerks to allow election challengers to observe the vote processing and counting process and to view the video records of ballot drop boxes.
The task of opening mail-in ballots is largely completed, the court had noted in its ruling, but the Trump campaign argued in the appeal that their effort is not pointless "because review and certification of election results continues… (and) review of absent uniformed services voter or overseas voter ballots is ongoing. Review of these ballots must be performed by bipartisan teams of election inspectors."
The court had also ruled that, even if relief was warranted, the campaign sued the wrong person -- Secretary Benson does not have the authority to tell local polling officials what to do and the campaign would instead have to go directly to each jurisdiction.
In their reply, which has not yet been accepted by the court, the Trump campaign attorneys argued that it would be unreasonable to expect them to file individual lawsuits in dozens of Circuit Courts against each of the 1,603 county and local election officials in Michigan, the appeal states.
Contrary to the Court of Claims order, Michigan law provides that the Secretary of State is the "chief elections officer" responsible for overseeing the conduct of Michigan elections, the appeal said.
Notably, the appeal did not address the court's issue with the evidence presented in the case, which the judge had called hearsay "at best."
-ABC News' Olivia Rubin
