Updated: November 20, 2020 9:28:45 pm
President of the United States Donald Trump (Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images) Photographer: Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images North America
President Donald Trump and his allies are taking increasingly frenzied steps to subvert the 2020 election results, including calling state lawmakers to the White House as part of a risky attempt to reverse Joe Biden’s victory.
Among other last-minute tactics: personally calling local election officials who are trying to rescind their certification votes in Michigan, suggesting in a legal challenge that Pennsylvania override the popular vote there, and pressuring county officials in Arizona to delay the certification of vote counts.
Election law experts see it as the last gasp of the Trump campaign and say Biden is certain to enter the Oval Office in January. But there is great concern that Trump’s effort is causing real damage to public faith in the integrity of the American election.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, one of Trump’s most vocal Republican critics, accused Trump of resorting to “open pressure on state and local officials to subvert the will of the people and annul the election.”
Romney added: “It is difficult to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by a sitting US president.”
Trump’s own election security agency has declared the 2020 presidential election to have been the safest in history. Days after that statement was issued, Trump fired the agency leader.
Increasingly desperate and erratic movements have no reasonable chance of changing the outcome of the 2020 elections, in which Biden has now received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history and has obtained the necessary 270 Electoral College votes. to win.
But the Republican president’s constant barrage of unsubstantiated claims, his work to personally influence local officials who certify the votes, and his allies’ refusal to admit he lost are likely to have a lasting negative impact on the country. Legions of his followers do not believe he has lost.
“It’s about trying to establish the conditions where half the country believes there are only two chances, either win or the election is stolen,” said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Loyola Law School. “And that is not a democracy.”
The two Republican pollsters in Michigan’s Wayne County said in a statement Wednesday night that they were not confident the election would be fair and impartial.
“There has been a clear lack of transparency throughout the process,” they said. But there has been no evidence of misconduct or fraud in Michigan, election officials said.
Trump’s allies have focused on the way the president’s initial leadership in Michigan and some other states on election night faded as subsequent votes came, presenting it as evidence of something dire.
But a massive influx of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic leaned heavily toward Biden, who encouraged his supporters to vote by mail, and those votes were the last to be counted. So it seemed like Trump had an advantage when in fact he didn’t.
In fact, Biden crushed Trump in Wayne County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Detroit, by a ratio of more than 2-1 on his way to winning Michigan by 154,000 votes, according to unofficial results.
Earlier this week, the county’s two Republican tellers blocked vote certification there. Then they relented and the results were certified. But a person familiar with the matter said Trump reached out to pollsters, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, Tuesday night after the revised vote to express gratitude for their support.
Then on Wednesday, Palmer and Hartmann signed affidavits saying they believed the county vote “should not be certified.” They cannot rescind their votes, according to the Michigan secretary of state. The four-member state canvassing board is expected to meet Monday and is also split between two Democrats and two Republicans.
Trump seems determined to push the issue forward. He has invited Michigan Republican legislative leaders, Senate Majority Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, to the White House, according to two officials familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The two agreed to go, according to an official, but they have not commented publicly and it is unclear what the purpose of the meeting is.
The Michigan Legislature would be asked to select voters if Trump succeeds in convincing the state canvassing board not to certify Biden’s victory by 154,000 votes in the state. But both legislative leaders have indicated that they will not try to overturn Biden’s victory.
“Michigan law does not include a provision for the Legislature to directly select voters or award voters to anyone other than the person who received the most votes,” Shirkey’s spokeswoman said last week.
During a press conference in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, Biden said that Americans are “witnessing incredible irresponsibility, incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy works.” He added: “I think it is totally irresponsible.”
Earlier, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and others had held a press conference to allege a widespread Democratic electoral conspiracy involving multiple states and shady voting machines. But election officials across the country have repeatedly said there was no widespread fraud.
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