By Makini Brice and Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's reelection campaign on Wednesday said it had filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham County separate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.
The lawsuit, brought against the Chatham County Board of Elections, asked a judge to order the county to secure and account for ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day, according to a court document released by the campaign.
The campaign said it filed the suit after receiving information that late-arriving ballots in the county, which includes Savannah, were improperly mingled with valid ballots.
"President Trump and his team are fighting for the good of the nation to uphold the rule of law, and Georgia’s law is very clear: to legally count, mail ballots must be received by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day," deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said in a statement.
Trump's campaign has mounted a multi-pronged legal attack in several battleground states in the wake of the tight Nov. 3 presidential election.
The campaign has asked to intervene in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case over whether Pennsylvania, another key state that was still working its way through hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots, should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots sent by Election Day.
It also said it has filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania seeking to halt vote counting, arguing that officials had failed to allow fair access to counting sites.
"The Trump campaign is filing a number of meritless lawsuits around the country. Don't be deceived," Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias said on Twitter. "They know they have lost and this is all they have left."