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President Donald Trump drew attention with the only speech he has given so far, after the polls closed in the United States.
Here he came out against “electoral fraud”, without having proof of it, and threatened to take the vote count by mail to the Supreme Court.
– The objective now is to guarantee the integrity of this nation. This is a huge scam against our nation. We want the law to be applied correctly. We will go to the Supreme Court. We want the voting to stop. We don’t want them to find ballots at 04:00 in the morning and add them to the list. This is a very sad time, Trump said.
– A threat to democracy
But this threat will get Trump nowhere, says US expert Eirik Løkke, an adviser at Civita.
– The Supreme Court has already considered that they will not stop this, Løkke tells Dagbladet.
– Trump can complain and say that he will file a lawsuit to put an end to the counting of votes cast basically legally, which in itself is absurd, but it will be very difficult for him to be heard by this lawsuit, continues Løkke.
– madness
– The Supreme Court of the United States, with Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, will not turn the United States into a banana republic, even if Trump wants it. These are good lawyers, not Trump lackeys, he says and elaborates:
– They will make their own assessments, regardless of what Trump may think, and they will not agree with all kinds of crazy Trump.
– Is that what you think it is? Madness?
– Yes, that’s exactly what it is, when a sitting president wants to undermine the election because he is leading the preliminary counted votes. I’ve never seen anything like it.
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the joker
Associate Professor Sondre Torp Helmersen from UiT Norway’s Arctic University School of Law agrees.
– The courts are investigating the cases they want. If the claim is unfounded, they dismiss the case. The joker is that Trump has appointed several justices, who may feel some loyalty to him, but they are professional lawyers. Although they lean in the same political direction as Trump, they are not his slaves in court, Helmersen says.
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– hypocrisy
On Wednesday and Thursday night Norwegian time, it became clear that the Trump administration will take the results of the elections in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan to court.
Eirik Løkke at Civita also doesn’t think Trump gets his way in particular.
– Go ahead. And they will continue to do so as long as they believe they will succeed and maybe more, he says.
Helmersen votes in:
– Most likely, nothing bad happened and then you will get nowhere. Then you can try to train the process as long as possible.
In Pennsylvania, Trump voters are rallying and demanding that the count be stopped. In Arizona, the opposite is true. Joe Biden is now just over 2.4 percentage points ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona after Trump regained some of the leadership in the state’s largest county, Maricopa.
– There, his supporters demand that all early votes be counted. This is hypocrisy from an entirely different world, Løkke believes.
Deadline
The Constitution of the United States contains clear provisions on when the Electoral College will meet and certify the election. This year, it will take place on December 14. At the same time, there is the so-called “safe harbor day”.
– The safe day this year is December 8. This is the deadline for states to submit election results. If it is delivered later, the state runs the risk that the result will not be included, explains Løkke.
Sondre Torp Helmersen of UiT Norway Arctic University refers to the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
The election was very even in Florida, with many believing that Gore was entitled to a recount, but the Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional. Therefore, Bush was declared the winner.
Helmersen explains that in 2000 they managed to resolve the electoral conflict in time before a safe day, and notes that the situation was much more even and uncertain then than it is now.
– If there is a count in some states, it may be a different result. But that is unlikely. Nor do I think I can be successful in not counting the votes by mail.
New count
However, in demanding a new census, Trump has every right to do so when the result is very uniform.
– If the margin of victory is less than 1 percent, there will automatically be a recount, says Eirik Løkke.
In Wisconsin, a new census has already been announced.
Løkke believes that the most important thing in the United States now is that those who work to count votes are allowed to work without interruptions or, in the extreme, what is perceived as threats of the use of violence. Demonstrations outside polling stations are reported in several places.
It has been speculated that Trump could refuse to resign as president. Helmersen doesn’t think he’s getting anywhere.
– So the question is what it means to be president of the United States. In Venezuela they have two people who claim to be president. We can get such a situation in the United States, but there is still a long way to go. If you go to the extreme, in practice the military may decide who the president is. But Trump will leave the White House in January.
Three electoral fraud conspiracies that turned out not to be true
– No legs to stand
Political science professor Jennifer Leigh Bailey at NTNU explains that each state has different procedures when it comes to counting votes, and therefore it is difficult to get a complete overview.
– But what the protesters want is to stop the count. A Republican lawsuit has no basis to stand on, he says.
This year there are many votes by mail due to the pandemic. Democrats in particular have voted by mail to avoid being infected with covid-19. Bailey explains that voting this way is not abnormal, but something that many people are not used to.
It also notes that it is being discussed whether ballots that arrive after November 3 should be counted.
– There are few margins while counting, and it changes hour by hour. This creates anxiety about the process. An anxiety that Trump has created for several months, but that is really a natural part of the process. It looks bad, but it is not. There are legitimate votes that are counted. The protesters don’t want to be told, but it is fundamentally wrong to ask questions about it.
Disputed
The possibility of hiring Trump in some states depends on the legal basis of the state in question.
– The claims have a poor legal basis. The point is to sow doubts and lengthen the time.
She emphasizes that if Trump succeeds in his threats, the United States has never had such a situation. Even during the Civil War, many did not accept Abraham Lincoln as president, but they did accept the election.
– Trump may refuse to resign, but the question is whether he is legally supported. You can sit in the White House and say that you will not resign, but if Biden wins, he will be president from January. So Trump will leave on January 20 anyway. Point.
