Trump’s refusal to concede the presidential election involves lots of lawsuits
Despite President Trump's claims, there has been no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
A week has passed since since former Vice President Joe Biden secured the more than 270 electoral votes needed to win the 2020 Presidential Election. But President Donald Trump has still refused to accept these results, casting doubt on a peaceful transfer of power. Trump’s baseless main argument: that the election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud caused by mail-in ballots.
Trump’s campaign filed numerous lawsuits in several states where Biden won. Trump has also blocked cooperation with President-elect Biden’s team while he contests election results. Here’s a rundown of Trump’s lawsuits and why they won’t change the outcome of the election, as well as why rumors of voter fraud are not true.
Trump’s Lawsuits Explained
President Trump’s campaign has filed multiple lawsuits in key swing states where he lost, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan. These lawsuits focus on stopping the count of mail-in ballots and allowing Trump campaign members to supervise the counting of these ballots. We talked with UConn Professor of Law and Public Policy Douglas Spencer to get a better understanding of the lawsuits and what they could mean for the election:
“The Trump campaign’s litigation will have no impact on the outcome of this election. Successful election challenges are predicated on evidence gathered during an election, not after,” Spencer explained via email. “Courts are hesitant to alter election results under any circumstances, and they will be very skeptical of cases where the primary evidence is after-the-fact affidavits (signed statements by individuals who say they saw something fishy).”
Courts have proven to be skeptical of these lawsuits. They have been dismissed in Georgia and Michigan. There is also no possible way for these lawsuits to change the outcome of the election — even if Trump wins all of them, there are not enough affected ballots to get rid of Biden’s lead in the states in question.
For instance, if Trump won his lawsuit in Pennsylvania and stopped the count of ballots that were received after Election Day, this would mean only 4,000 ballots would be removed. Biden leads Pennsylvania by 50,000 votes, so this would ultimately have no impact on who won the state. The case is the same in Georgia, where only 53 ballots would be affected by Trump’s lawsuit despite Biden’s current lead of 14,000 votes.
According to Spencer, these lawsuits are more likely a strategic move for Trump.
“First, it’s in his nature to be combative and he has a particular history of threatening lawsuits to deflect negative publicity,” Spencer wrote. “Second, his strategy seems to be a desire to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire election, not just specific ballots. But this strategy is likely to blow up in his face.”
Ultimately, Spencer is confident that the courts will sort out the issue.
“Each of the cases brought by the Trump campaign will be decided in an orderly and peaceful fashion. Each side will have an equal opportunity to present their case and the dispute will be resolved based on documented evidence and reason. Just what the doctor ordered,” Spencer stated. “This past week our election system was tested and it proved up to the task. This next week the courts will be tested and I’m confident they will pass with flying colors.”
Why Trump’s Voter Fraud Claims are Baseless
President Trump and his congressional Republican supporters claim that Trump lost the election because of “illegal votes” in certain states. Despite this, the Trump campaign has offered no evidence to backup his claims of widespread voter fraud while filing highly speculative lawsuits that have been dismissed. In many of the states where the vote is being challenged, other Republicans won congressional races. In Georgia and Nevada, the election systems are overseen by Republican officials.
Officials from both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as international observers have stated that the 2020 U.S. election went well, according to the Associated Press. A joint statement issued on Thursday by the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating executive committees said this year’s election marked “the most secure in American history.” Many states also successfully improved their mail-in voting systems in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including in places that Trump won—Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana.
The New York Times spoke to election officials from 45 states asking whether they had seen any cases of voter fraud. They found that the election had been a success even through the pandemic, and reported no major cases of fraud or any other voting issues.
This includes the city of Philadelphia, where Trump’s lawyer Rudy W. Giuliani held a news conference in the parking lot of a landscaping company claiming there was fraud in the city’s election. The spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s attorney general refuted Giuliani, saying there is no evidence supporting his claims. When a Trump lawyer was asked by a Pennsylvania judge if he was alleging any fraud, the Trump lawyer replied that he was not.
Other claims of voter fraud have also been unproven. One such example is Richard Hopkins, a postal worker from Pennsylvania, who spread claims that a Pennsylvania postmaster instructed postal workers to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day, to ensure they were counted. Hopkins later admitted to investigators that he made up the allegations.
Another popular claim has been that people used the identities of dead people in Pennsylvania and Michigan to cast votes. There is no evidence that this happened, and can usually be explained by human or software error, according to the Associated Press.
Trump’s voter fraud claims have been given a false sense of legitimacy due to several conservative media personalities and outlets agreeing with him. This includes The Rush Limbaugh Show and Mark Levin from Fox News show Life, Liberty and Levin — both have repeated Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen.”
However, many other conservative-leaning organizations such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post urged Trump to concede the election, arguing that it would be better for the country and his legacy.
President Trump created a new leadership PAC called Save America, which asks for donations to help Trump “defend the election.” But a donor would have to give more than $8,000 before any money goes to the “recount account.” Smaller dollar donations can be used to help pay off Trump’s campaign debt and to support the Republican National Committee.
Some political experts say Trump’s refusal to concede could help him retain influence in the Republican Party after his term in office ends. There is also the possibility that Trump is reluctant to leave office because of impending lawsuits involving his finances and sexual assault allegations. Once the President leaves office, he will have far fewer legal protections.
As of today, Joe Biden is the President-elect with 290 projected Electoral College votes. Biden has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 election by many world leaders including Canada’s Justin Trudeau, the UK’s Boris Johnson, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, as well as Pope Francis.