2 fake states are trying to join the Supreme Court case to throw out votes in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania
Two states that do not exist are trying to join a Supreme Court case to invalidate votes in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The lawyer for "New California" and "New Nevada" told Insider his "new states in waiting" had an "absolute right" to intervene in the case.
The lawsuit to overturn votes was brought by Texas and is backed by President Donald Trump, 17 other Republican-led states, and more than 100 GOP members of Congress.
Robert E. Thomas III, the lawyer representing "new states," says he's part of a movement to create new states and curb democracy.
Two states that do not exist are trying to join a lawsuit to invalidate the votes of four states that do.
Entities calling themselves "New California State" and "New Nevada State" have filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a case Texas brought against Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The amicus brief for the fake states was filed by Robert E. Thomas III, an attorney with an address listed in Nevada who is a member of the state bar in California.
Related: Trump still hasn't conceded — here's how other runner-ups have
Thomas told Insider in an interview "New Nevada" and "New California" were "new states in waiting" and that each was a registered 501(c)(4) organization attempting to form a new state using the proper constitutional process. He said states like Pennsylvania administered their elections in a way that was "arbitrary and capricious."
"The Supreme Court gives states in a case like this an absolute right to intervene," Thomas said. "And we regard ourselves as one of those states with an absolute right."
The lawsuit seeks to invalidate tens of millions of votes in those states, all of which President Donald Trump lost.
Since Texas first filed the lawsuit Monday, 17 other Republican-led states, Trump himself, and 106 members of Congress have thrown their support behind the attempt to overthrow the democratic elections in those states.
The lawsuit contains numerous factual inaccuracies, and legal experts expect it to fail.
'New Nevada' and 'New California' said the real states unfairly administered their elections
Thomas told Insider he was the chairman and counsel of "New Nevada" and the counsel of "New California" and that he was representing the latter at the behest of Paul Preston, the president of New California.
His Supreme Court brief argues that "New California State" and "New Nevada State" have a right to fight the actions of "Old California State" and "Old Nevada State" because of how the November election was administered.
"Part of the reason for the formation of New California State and New Nevada Sate is to stop the lawless actions of Governors Newsome (California) and Sisolak (Nevada)," the brief said.
Thomas said the governors and county officials in those states wrongly changed election rules rather than leaving it up to the state legislatures.
"We are not only a state in formation, but we are aggrieved parties," he said, adding: "Since these people are acting without the approval of the legislature, it is what's called ultra vires, which is illegal on its face."
The brief said "New California" and "New Nevada" were affected because different counties had different rules for voting.
"New California State and New Nevada State are impacted because both in-person voters and absentee ballot voters are handled differently county to-county within the States of California and Nevada, and differently between how voters are treated in California compared to how voters in Nevada are treated," the brief said.
The attorneys general for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia filed their responses to the Texas challenge on Thursday, saying it had no right to challenge how other states ran elections.
"Texas proposes an extraordinary intrusion into Wisconsin's and the other defendant states' elections, a task that the Constitution leaves to each state," the Wisconsin brief said. "Wisconsin has conducted its election and its voters have chosen a winning candidate for their state. Texas's bid to nullify that choice is devoid of a legal foundation or a factual basis."
The lawsuits from Trump and his allies to overturn the will of voters have so far been an overwhelming failure, with zero victories out of nearly 40 lawsuits.
The movement to create new states seeks to curb democracy
Thomas said he was part of a movement to create new states that generally would exclude large urban areas. Similar efforts, he said, are also ongoing in Illinois, Washington, and New York.
"New California state is all of California except the LA basin, the San Francisco and Sacramento metro areas," he said. "New Nevada state is all of rural Nevada except Clark County."
The movement overall is rooted in what Thomas described as the American Founding Fathers' fear of democracy, he said, adding that the US should be a Republic.
He said each 501(c)(4) organization seeks to educate the public about forming a new state using Article 4, Sections 3 and 4, of the Constitution, the same method used to create West Virginia in the 1860s.
Before Thomas took up the full-time cause of founding new states, he was a public defender in Oregon and an assistant district attorney in California prosecuting fraud, he said.
"I thought I retired after 40-plus years of practicing attorney, and I'm trying to enjoy my retirement and I'm not successful at that," he told Insider.
Read more:
Judges striking down and dismissing Trump's election lawsuits keep asking: Why'd you wait so long?
Trump and his allies have won zero out of at least 38 lawsuits they've filed since Election Day
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