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President Donald Trump and his allies are moving forward with a careless and erratic effort to reverse Joe Biden’s victory, taking unprecedented steps to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Among his last-resort tactics: summoning Michigan state legislators to the White House on Friday to explore a voter replacement tactic, personally calling local election officials who are trying to rescind their certification votes in Michigan, suggesting in a legal challenge that Pennsylvania overturned. the popular vote there and pressure Arizona county officials 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.
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.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and 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 override the election.”
Romney added: “It is difficult to imagine a worse and more undemocratic action by a sitting US president.”
– Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 20, 2020
Trump’s own election security agency declared the 2020 presidential election the safest in history on November 12. Days after that statement was issued, Trump fired the agency leader.
Increasingly desperate 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 garnered the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win. , with a total of 306. compared to Trump’s 232.
But the actions of the Republican president and the refusal of his allies to admit he lost are likely to have a lasting negative effect on the country. Legions of his followers do not believe that he has lost.
About half of Republicans polled by Reuters / Ipsos said Trump “legitimately won” the election, but was stolen in a systemic fraud in favor of Biden, according to a poll conducted between Nov. 13 and 17. Only 29 percent of Republicans said Biden won legitimately.
Replacement Voter Theory
Trump has invited Michigan Republican legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Speaker of the House of Representatives Lee Chatfield, to the White House, two officials familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The two agreed to go, according to an official, and are expected to do so on Friday afternoon.
The latest Trump campaign strategy, described to Reuters by three people familiar with the plan, is to convince Republican-controlled legislatures in Biden-won battle states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan to undermine the results.
“Frankly, all elections in all swing states should be annulled and legislatures should make sure voters are selected for Trump,” Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s lawyers, told Fox Business television on Thursday.
This theory stems from an obscure federal law that allows state legislators to designate voters if voters “did not make a decision” on Election Day. Legal experts said lawmakers could pass a resolution saying the election was so marked by irregularities that the outcome could not be determined and then proceed to name their own constituents.
If the theory works, the Michigan Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, should select voters if Trump succeeds in convincing the state canvass board not to certify Biden’s victory by 154,000 votes in the state.
“There are many reasons to think it is illegal, inappropriate and politically unworkable,” Paul Smith, a Georgetown professor and vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, a voter advocacy group, told Reuters.
Election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, Richard Hasen, agrees that if the legislature approved its own voters list “it is extremely unlikely that it will lead to a different outcome for the president.”
“If the Michigan legislature met to vote to overturn the outcome of the election in which Joe Biden won by 150,000 votes, there would be riots on the streets of Michigan and across the country,” Hasen wrote on his blog Thursday. “It would be a real coup attempt to subvert American democracy.”
And it wouldn’t work. The certification process continues in Michigan, and there will be a list of voters for Joe Biden, which will be signed by the governor (and therefore will have preference in Congress under the ballot counting law if there are competing lists of voters) ” .
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey are expected to visit the White House on Friday. [File: David Eggert/AP Photo]
The two Michigan legislative leaders who will visit the White House have previously indicated that they will not attempt to reverse Biden’s victory.
Meanwhile, two Republican pollsters in Michigan’s Wayne County said in a statement late Wednesday that they were not confident the elections 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.
Earlier this week, the county’s two Republican tellers blocked the certification of votes 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.
Other electoral challenges
On Thursday, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and others held a press conference to allege a widespread Democratic election conspiracy involving several states and shady voting machines. But election officials across the country have repeatedly said there was no widespread fraud.
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.
Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis are part of Donald Trump’s legal team behind his series of electoral challenges [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]
In Wisconsin, the Trump campaign paid $ 3 million for a recount in two of the state’s largest counties: Milwaukee and Dane counties. The recount begins Friday and is expected to be completed before December 1, when the state will certify the election results.
In Pennsylvania, where the Trump campaign is challenging the 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 remove the state. 20 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 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.
In Georgia, where officials audited the results of the presidential race, Trump has repeatedly attacked the process, calling it “a joke.”
A manual recount of the votes cast in the presidential race was completed this week and the results confirmed Biden’s narrow lead over Trump. The state will certify your results on Friday.
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