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Donald Trump wants to turn his electoral defeat into a victory. Even if everything speaks against him. In the state of Michigan, it doesn’t go anywhere else.
On Tuesday night, Monica Palmer suddenly had Donald Trump on the line.
Palmer has had a stressful day. The Republican is part of a committee that reviews the election results in Wayne County, Michigan. Biden has clearly won the district. With his Republican colleague, Palmer had initially refused to certify the result in an hour-long meeting, only to surrender after a public outcry shortly afterward.
On Wednesday morning, the two Republicans suddenly changed their minds. They would prefer to withdraw their approval of the result. After the phone call with Trump.
Michigan is the most far-reaching example yet of Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine the election, and thus democracy. In other contested states, his lawyers are still trying to wreak havoc and sow doubt with a flood of mostly futile lawsuits. In Michigan, Trump is now taking matters into his own hands personally, with fairly obvious pressure.
A weak argument weakly presented
The Monica Palmer case is just one indication of her tactics, though particularly alarming. By Tuesday there had already been an uproar in the committee. Palmer and his Republican colleague, who is said to have received a call from Trump later, initially did not want to confirm the results and opposed the two Democrats in the nonpartisan body.
They argued that there were small discrepancies between the number of actual votes and the number of citizens who were reported to have voted. According to experts, such deviations are quite normal and occur, for example, when a voter arrives for the vote and registers, but then leaves again due to the long waiting time.
The mistakes were very small, nowhere near close enough to jeopardize Biden’s comfortable lead of more than 148,000 votes in Michigan. A weak reason for not certifying the outcome of the elections in Michigan’s largest district.
But the Republicans continued to undermine his position. They agreed to certify the result in all sub-districts except the city of Detroit. There, 80 percent of the population is black, which brought Palmer and his colleague the accusation of racism. Joe Biden also won many votes in Detroit. Many did not believe in coincidences. The minor discrepancies, the main argument against certification, existed both in Detroit and in the sub-districts that the Republicans wanted to accept.
Who should that convince?
Trump team withdraws lawsuit in Michigan
So followed the public outcry against the blockade, the blindness, the calls from Trump and the next morning the desire of the two Republicans to withdraw their consent.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Palmer denied that Trump had pushed his vote. “He wanted to make sure he was okay after learning about the threats,” he said. Sounds good. Michigan Supervisor of Elections Jocelyn Benson, who has to formulate carefully because of her position, found another word for the calls when she spoke to CNN: inappropriate. No explicit instruction from Trump is required for this trial. After all, a candidate in an election had called the officials who had a say in the outcome. And who wanted to review their vote later?
In the end, the Republicans did not get away with their withdrawal. Once certified, the result can no longer be withdrawn, a spokesperson for the election official made clear. Consent is consent.
However, Trump’s team apparently didn’t notice, or chose not to. On Thursday, attorneys dropped a major lawsuit in Michigan arguing that Wayne County’s “premature certification” had stopped. With that you achieved what you wanted. Experts, like many others, gave this lawsuit little or no chance of success, possibly the real reason for this recall.
Rudy Giuliani: The controversial lawyer is responsible for Trump’s electoral demands. (Source: Jacquelyn Martin / AP / dpa)
Trump’s second extraordinary intervention
In any case, Donald Trump obviously doesn’t see his goal yet. According to US media, he invited Republican deputies from Michigan to his White House this Friday. The New York Times reports that Trump will meet with Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield in the late afternoon.
It is Trump’s second completely extraordinary intervention in a few days. It is not yet known what exactly the meeting will be about. But it seems clear that it will not be a coffee party. Especially since it fits into a scenario that has long been debated as a possible tactic by the Trump team to turn the results into disputed states.
In theory, the Republican-dominated Michigan parliament could decide not to recognize the entire electoral process because of all the alleged fraud, and simply send out all 16 of the state’s electorates. For Trump, of course. In fact, it could even result in the creation of two competing groups of Michigan voters: one through the regular process for Biden and one through parliament for Trump.
An unlikely scenario
It’s a highly unlikely scenario, even in theory. The top two Republicans Trump invited have also announced that the candidate with the most votes will receive the electoral vote in Michigan. That actually rules out such actions.
Even if it did, the Supreme Court or Congress of the United States would have to decide. And without any proven and widespread voter fraud, it all speaks for the regular process, and therefore Biden’s constituents.
But maybe there will be another scandal in Michigan before this scenario occurs. The outcome of the statewide elections will be certified on Monday. As with individual districts, one nonpartisan body is responsible for this at the state level, two Republicans, two Democrats. Here too the Republicans could object. He’s made it clear enough that Trump wants that. The result would be quite certain: a lawsuit.
Even then, Trump is unlikely to prevail. And the current president has a much bigger problem: Even if he turns Michigan against all odds and gets 16 voters, he still hasn’t won the election by long. Biden has 306 voters, Trump only 232. He would need this miracle in several states.
Trump doesn’t stop that, of course. Just look how far it can go.
