President Donald Trump and his allies are taking increasingly frenzied steps to subvert the results of the 2020 election, including calling state lawmakers to the White House as part of a risky attempt to overturn 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.
“It is very disturbing that some Republicans apparently cannot imagine the possibility that they have legitimately lost this election,” said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who researches and teaches electoral law.
“We depend on democratic norms, including having the losers graciously accept defeat,” he said. “It seems to be falling apart.”
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.
The increasingly desperate and erratic movements are not expected to change the outcome of the 2020 election, where Biden has now received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history and has garnered the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win.
But the 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 that he has lost.
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“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 tellers in Michigan’s Wayne County said in a statement Thursday that they were not confident the election was 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 margin of more than 2-1 on his way to winning Michigan by 146,000 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 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 153,000 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.”
“I think it is totally irresponsible.”
A few hours earlier, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and others had held a press conference to allege a widespread Democratic election conspiracy involving multiple states and shady voting machines. But election officials across the country have repeatedly said there was no widespread fraud.
Many of the fraud allegations come from election observers who submitted affidavits included in the lawsuits in battle states with the goal of delaying the certification of votes. Those affidavits are based on unsubstantiated innuendo and suggestions of fraud.
For example, they refer to suitcases at a polling place, but do not suggest that ballots are counted secretly. There are reports of ballot duplication, something that is commonly done when a ballot is physically damaged. There are claims that partisan election watchers were too far away to get a good look and therefore something suspicious was probably going on. But they have no proof. Election observers have no auditing role in elections; They are volunteer observers.
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Giuliani cited some affidavits that he said showed a large Democratic conspiracy, but added that he could not reveal much of the evidence. One he cited was from Jessy Jacob, identified as a city employee in Detroit who said she saw other workers training voters to vote for Biden and the Democrats.
A judge who refused to block certification of the Detroit-area results noted that Jacob’s claims did not include “date, location, frequency, or employee names” and that he only came forward after unofficial results indicated that Biden Michigan had won.
Trump’s legal adviser Jenna Ellis, who joined Giuliani, said more evidence would be obtained and that Trump’s allies would have more success in court in the future. But so far, most of his legal actions have been dismissed.
Chris Krebs, the Trump administration election official fired last week for comments on 2020 security, tweeted: “That press conference was the most dangerous 1 hour 45 minute of television in US history. And possibly the craziest. “
In Pennsylvania, where the Trump campaign is challenging election results in federal court, a legal team led by Giuliani suggested in a filing Wednesday that the judge order the Republican-led state legislature to elect delegates to the College. Electoral, which could throw the 20 of the state. electoral votes to Trump. A judge canceled an evidentiary hearing in the case.
In Arizona, the Republican Party is pressuring county officials to delay certifying the results. The Republican Party lost a bid Thursday to postpone certification in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state. In northwestern Arizona, Mohave County officials postponed their certification until next week.
Judge John Hannah ruled without explanation, except to prevent the party from re-presenting the case. The judge promised a full explanation in the future.
Maricopa County officials are expected to certify the election results on Friday.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes and Maricopa County put him on top. The county conducted a manual count of some ballots the weekend after the election, which showed that its automatic counts were 100% accurate. The same was found Wednesday during routine post-election precision testing.
In Georgia, where officials have been auditing the results of the presidential race, Trump has repeatedly attacked the process, calling it “a joke.”
He has also made repeated incorrect claims that Georgia election officials cannot verify signatures on absentee ballot envelopes. In fact, Georgia requires that they be controlled.
The secretary of state’s office was scheduled to release the audit results on Thursday.
During manual counting, several counties found previously uncounted ballots that the secretary of state’s office said would reduce Biden’s lead to just under 13,000 votes, with about 5 million total votes cast. Georgia law allows a candidate to request a recount within two business days of certification if the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. That count would be done using machines.
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