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Following the announcement on Saturday of the victory of Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the US presidential elections, outgoing President Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge his defeat with the support of some Republicans.
The Republican Party and Trump’s campaign team have filed lawsuits in at least five key states, alleging fraud or irregularities in the electoral process, but without providing evidence.
A recount has been announced in Georgia, something that could be done in Wisconsin, efforts that have little chance of changing the outcome of the election.
How long can the results be questioned? Can Joe Biden’s win be questioned?
How long does it take to confirm the results?
Counting is currently underway in some key states, like Pennsylvania, and manual counts are scheduled to begin in Georgia. But each state has a deadline by which the results and votes received by each candidate must be validated: in Georgia this date is November 20, in Pennsylvania it is 23 and in Arizona it is 30.
“I don’t think we have to wait for all states to formally validate their results,” said John Fortier, an election expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“I think that at some point, probably in the next few days, with the advance of the count and rather with the rejection of some demands, we will see that the differences are too great to wait for the results to change legally,” he said. “I think that this way the problem will be solved.”
Dec. 14 is the actual deadline, experts say: then voters from each state gather to formally vote for one or the other candidate, a vote determined by who has won the majority in each state.
Different voter lists in ambiguous states?
This is an “extremely unlikely” scenario, according to Barry Byrne, an expert at the University of Wisconsin, “but the mere fact that some people bring it up is worrying … We thought that American democracy had reached a point where that he couldn’t see such behaviors. “
In this scenario, which, according to Berden, would be “contrary to any rule and procedure for appointing a president,” a Republican-majority parliament in a state in which the Democratic victory is contested could nominate Republican voters instead of ratifying it. the Democratic voter list.
The dispute would then move on to Congress, which will meet on January 6 to count the electorate’s votes and formally determine the winner of the election.
But for that to happen, many ambiguous states would have to submit different voter lists to challenge Biden’s victory, which experts say is impossible.
What if Trump doesn’t acknowledge his defeat?
“Donald Trump may never admit defeat,” Bourdain said. “He is still questioning the results of the 2016 elections, although he won … so in this case he is likely to question them for the rest of his life.”
This does not mean that Joe Biden will not be sworn in on January 20, 2021, but it will fuel controversy on the Republican side and may “delegitimize” the victory of the Democratic candidate, said the expert. “Perhaps this is the sole objective of the Trump campaign team,” he said.
John Fortier, for his part, said he was “absolutely convinced that there would be a peaceful transfer of power”, even if it was not “the friendliest” or “the softest”.
“It would be better to admit defeat, but if the transition is delayed, it will not be the end of the world,” he said.
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
