Attempts To Delay Or Deny Election Results
Republican reactions to Donald Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraudTexas v. Pennsylvaniaamicus curiae
In November, Trump focused his efforts on trying to delay vote certifications at the county and state level. On December 2, Trump posted a 46-minute video to his social media in which he repeated his baseless claims that the election was “rigged” and fraudulent and called for either the state legislatures or the courts to overturn the results of the election and allow him to stay in office. He continued to apply pressure to elected Republicans in Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania in an unprecedented attempt to overturn the election result. Some commentators have characterized Trump’s actions as an attempted coup d’état or self-coup.
On December 15, the day after the electoral college vote, Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who was previously among those who would not recognize the election results, publicly accepted Biden’s win, saying “Today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.”
In a December 21 news conference, outgoing Attorney General William Barr disavowed several actions reportedly being considered by Trump, including seizing voting machines, appointing a special counsel to investigate voter fraud, and appointing one to investigate Hunter Biden.
Why Trumps Latest Electoral College Ploy Is Doomed To Fail
Even as President-elect Joe Bidens victory was affirmed by the Electoral College on Monday, Republican electors supporting President Donald Trump met in a handful of battleground states won by Biden and tried to appoint themselves as alternate electors that could keep the president in office.
Would that deny Biden his presidency? In a word, no. The competing slates were just the latest effort by Trump and his allies to use the complex machinery of U.S. presidential elections to sow confusion and doubt about Bidens victory.
Heres an explanation of what really happened:
CAN THESE ALTERNATE ELECTORS CHANGE THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTION?
Again, no. Biden won the election. Biden won more votes than Trump in 25 states and the District of Columbia, amassing a total of 306 electors. Those results have been certified, and the governor in each state signed off on a group of electors pledged to vote for the winner. Thats who voted Monday. The Republican electors were not designated by any state official and have no legal status yet.
The next step is on Jan. 6, when both chambers of Congress meet and accept the electors votes. A handful of Republicans in the House have already signaled they plan to object to this. They need to find a Republican senator to potentially force a vote in Congress.
Theyre dead on arrival and will be treated as frivolous and hardly worth the time of day, Foley said.
HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE?
Will Trump Run Again And Win
All bets are off in the United States of Fear, Rage, and Peril.
- Senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.
The fear and rage that gripped the US capital under the presidency of Donald Trump have left the country in peril, its democracy ill, and its immunity weak.
Trump may have been excised from office in November but Trumpism has not been eradicated. After months of post-elections recovery, it is back with a vengeance, slowly metastasising throughout the countrys body and soul.
Less than a year after winning the battle for the soul of America, President Joe Biden is slipping in the polls while his predecessors numbers are, well, rising. In fact, according to a recent poll, Trump is already ahead of Biden, albeit by a small margin of 48 to 46 points.
These numbers may flip again in favour of the Democrats if they are able to pass the New Deal-like infrastructure and reconciliation bills in Congress before the end of the year, which will inject trillions of dollars into the US economy.
But even the effect of such legislation may prove transitory, depending on a number of economic and political factors, and on the Republican opposition to the socialist nanny-state policies on the federal and state level.
Meanwhile, 14 Republican-controlled states under Trumpian influence passed 24 new laws that assert their control over the running of elections and make it easier to overturn elections results.
But what will he run on? What will be his message, his mantra?
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‘blue Wall’ Rebuilt With Suburban Votes
Trump suggested throughout his campaign that Biden would “destroy the beautiful suburbs,” but it turned out many suburbanites disagreed.
Biden won back a number of crucial Midwest states that Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 largely thanks to suburban voters. The cluster of historically Democrat-won states, dubbed the blue wall, include three of the five major battleground states this election cycle.
“We saw a consistent pattern across the country, in both close states and states that weren’t so close, that Biden made significant strides compared to Clinton’s performance four years ago in suburbs, predominantly affluent suburbs, of major metro areas,” Wasserman said.
In Wisconsin, the divide between the state’s rural and urban populations was defined, as 42 Wisconsin counties, many small and rural, cast more ballots for Trump than in 2016. Biden won Wisconsin by bolstering support in the populous suburbs of Milwaukee and Madison, despite average turnout in the cities themselves. Biden erased Trump’s entire 2016 margin in Wisconsin in just the counties surrounding Milwaukee, Wasserman said.
That same divide made Michigan competitive. Biden made gains in counties like Kent, where Grand Rapids is located, and the Detroit metropolitan area, though he underperformed Clinton in the city of Detroit. Trump improved his margins statewide, but not enough to surpass Bidens lead.
Fact check:Biden won popular, Electoral College votes in several battleground states
Icymi Steve Bannon Messed With The January 6 Committee And Found Out
The January 6 House Select Committee decided last week was the time to make good on the threats it had been making to those who had defied its subpoena requests and Steve Bannon was their target.
First, the committee voted unanimously to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress, then the House of Representatives did the same .
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Election Night And The Next Day
The news media and election experts were surprised at Trump’s winning the Electoral College. On the eve of the vote, spread betting firm Spreadex had Clinton at an Electoral College spread of 307322 against Trump’s 216231. The final polls showed a lead by Clinton and in the end she did receive more votes. Trump himself expected, based on polling, to lose the election, and rented a small hotel ballroom to make a brief concession speech, later remarking: “I said if we’re going to lose I don’t want a big ballroom.” Trump performed surprisingly well in all battleground states, especially Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Even Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, states that had been predicted to vote Democratic, were won by Trump.Cindy Adams reported that “Trumptown knew they’d won by 5:30. Math, calculations, candidate dislike causing voter abstention begat the numbers.”
After networks called Pennsylvania for Trump, putting him with 264 electoral votes while he had a five-point lead in Arizona, which gives eleven electoral votes that would put Trump above the majority of 270, Clinton realized she had no chance to win the election and called Trump early Wednesday morning to concede defeat. Clinton was unable to make a public concession that night, as she had no concession speech written.
What Are The Chances Well Know The Next President On Election Night
In addition, theres something to be said for the idea that its worthwhile to lock in a vote. If someone has already voted, theyre 100 percent likely to vote . What about someone who says theyre planning to vote on Election Day but hasnt done so yet? Theyre certainly not 100 percent likely to vote. Something could come up on Election Day they get stuck late at work, they blow out a tire, they feel sick, they dont bother because they think their candidate is losing. Indeed, even some of the people that pollsters deem to be the most likely voters dont wind up voting. If 2 percent of mail voters have their votes rejected, but 5 percent of likely Election Day voters dont wind up voting, then polls could underestimate Democrats.
Wait, wasnt this supposed to be a post about how Trump could beat his polls? Well, the point is just that mail voting creates additional uncertainty this year, and its easy to imagine how that could help out Trump or Biden.
Another potential source of anxiety for pollsters is the Hispanic vote. Polls show Trump having made significant gains relative to 2016 with Hispanic voters and to a lesser extent with Black voters, especially Black men. This is not enough to offset gains that Biden has made with white voters, however, including white voters both with and without a college degree.
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Minor Parties And Independents
Third party and independent candidates who have obtained more than 100,000 votes nationally or on Ballot in at least 15 states are listed separately.
Libertarian Party
Ballot access to 84 electoral votes :map
- As write-in: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin
- No ballot access: District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming
In some states, Evan McMullin’s running mate was listed as Nathan Johnson on the ballot rather than Mindy Finn, although Nathan Johnson was intended to only be a placeholder until an actual running mate was chosen.
| 2016 Independent ticket |
Could Trump Actually Be Successful
It’s not impossible, but the chances are very, very slim. First of all, the president would have to overturn the results in multiple states, where Biden’s leads range from tens of thousands of votes to more than a hundred thousand. This isn’t 2000, when everything came down just to Florida.
What’s more, many of the states Trump’s legal team is targeting – Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada – have Democratic governors who are not going to sit idly by while all of this takes place.
In Michigan, for instance, Governor Gretchen Whitmer could fire the current state election board and replace it with one willing to certify Biden’s victory.
Democratic governors could respond by naming their own slate of pro-Biden electors to compete with ones a Republican legislature choose, leaving it to Congress to decide which group to acknowledge.
That doesn’t mean Biden’s supporters aren’t worried, however. While the odds of this happening are along the lines of the earth being hit by a giant meteor or someone getting struck by lightning while winning the lottery, having victory snatched away at this point would be such a cataclysmic political event that the remote prospect of such a possibility is enough to give Democrats cold sweats.
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There Is Precedent For Trying A Former Government Official Established 145 Years Ago
Assuming Trump is not convicted on his impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection before the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, he will not face a ban on future campaigns.
Some believe Trump might still be kept out of federal office by an invocation of the 14th Amendment. That part of the Constitution, added after the Civil War with former Confederate officers in mind, banned any who had “engaged in insurrection” against the government.
But that wording could well be read to require action against the government, not just incitement of others to action by incendiary speech. It could also require lengthy litigation in federal courts and a balancing of the 14th Amendment with the free speech protections of the First Amendment.
All that can be said at this point is that the former president will settle into a post-presidential routine far from his previous homes in Washington and New York City. And the greatest obstacle to his return to power would seem to be the pattern of history regarding the post-presidential careers of his predecessors.
False Claims Of Fraud
Trump and a variety of his surrogates and supporters made a series of observably false claims that the election was fraudulent. Claims that substantial fraud was committed have been repeatedly debunked. On November 9 and 10, The New York Times called the offices of top election officials in every state all 45 of those who responded said there was no evidence of fraud. Some described the election as remarkably successful considering the coronavirus pandemic, the record turnout, and the unprecedented number of mailed ballots. On November 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” and noting “here is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
One week after the election, Republican Philadelphia city commissioner Al Schmidt said he had not seen any evidence of widespread fraud, stating, “I have seen the most fantastical things on social media, making completely ridiculous allegations that have no basis in fact at all and see them spread.” He added that his office had examined a list of dead people who purportedly voted in Philadelphia but “not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died.” Trump derided Schmidt, tweeting, “He refuses to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty. We win!”
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Is This Strategy Even Legal
Trump has spent much of his time in the White House shattering presidential norms and traditions. It appears that the last days of his term will be no different.
Just because the pressure Trump is putting on election officials and state legislatures is unprecedented or controversial, however, doesn’t necessarily mean it is illegal.
In the early days of the nation, state legislatures had broad powers of how they allocated their electoral votes, and there is still no constitutional requirement that they heed the results of a popular vote. They have since circumscribed those powers by assigning their votes based on the results of popular elections, but the underpinnings of the original system still remain intact.
If the president succeeds in convincing a legislature, such as Michigan’s, to act, Democrats are sure to mount legal objections. The law, both national and in each state, is fuzzy, given that this sort of thing has seldom been subject litigation.
Could states retroactively change the laws governing how they run their elections? Perhaps. But it would be up to judges to render the final verdict.
