The Trump campaign continues to hold onto baseless claims of voter fraud post-presidential election, despite accepting the start of President-Elect Joe Biden’s transition into the White House.
The talk and tweets of voter fraud coming from the President of the United States (POTUS) and his team are nothing new. Each day is another headline with a recount being requested or a lawsuit being filed by the Trump campaign. Yet, to say President Trump has been unsuccessful in his efforts, would be an understatement.
The President’s team has already lost or withdrawn over 50 lawsuits post-election. One of the more well-known losses was in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Trump’s legal team had sued Philadelphia after claiming that their poll watchers were too far away to supervise the ballot counting. The state’s supreme court ultimately ruled against these accusations on Nov. 17. The court stated, “The Election Code does not specify minimum distance parameters for the location of such representatives.”
The same day that Trump lost his Pennsylvania court case, Georgia had completed its manual recount of approximately 5 million ballots, which left Biden with a 0.3% lead. Georgia’s governor certified the state’s win for Biden on Nov. 20. POTUS, however, was convinced that a substantial amount of those ballots was cast illegally, through ballots like those of the deceased, for example.
He was quick to tweet, “The Governor of Georgia, and Secretary of State, refuse to let us look at signatures which would expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots…” However, there is no way to track mail-in ballots back to the voters after they’ve been removed from the envelope. Despite that, the Trump campaign still called for another recount, this time done by scanners. Biden was once again announced the winner of this automated recount on Dec. 4.
Alongside Georgia, the liberal Wisconsin counties of Milwaukee and Dane were also requested by the Trump campaign to perform a recount. The net result of the two recounts ultimately gave Biden an increase in his margin over Trump. It came as no surprise when the President tweeted that he would be filing a lawsuit against Wisconsin, but the state’s supreme court refused to hear the case.
Still, the Trump campaign insists that over 221,000 absentee ballots were illegally cast in Milwaukee and Dane and need to be thrown out. Interestingly enough, POTUS is only calling for throwing away ballots in the two counties that tremendously supported Biden.
It’s not expected that there will be any considerable change after the recounts and lawsuits are said and done. Professor Lipsitz of the Queens College (QC) political science department commented, “The legal challenges were designed to cultivate the impression that the election was stolen among his followers as well as to raise money to retire some of his campaign debt. He will continue to claim that the election was stolen and use his followers’ anger to fuel his movement and its takeover of the Republican Party.”
In the midst of all this, Trump made a big move on Nov. 17, firing the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Christopher Krebs. Krebs had called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” which prompted his removal by POTUS.
Many government officials, both Democratic and Republican, were saddened by the news and found it to be very telling of Trump’s character. U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin shared via email statement, “The president’s… lashing out as those willing to speak the truth about his lies has gone from petulant to downright dangerous.”
On Nov. 23, President Trump accepted the moving forward of the transitional period, granted by the General Services Administration (GSA). However, he also tweeted that same day, “What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history? We are moving full speed ahead…” Evidently, the fight is far from over.
When asked how she thinks this election period will affect future elections, Professor Lipsitz shared her concerns that “…wherever Republicans control state government, they will make voting less convenient and accessible to take out whatever small gains they might get from such tactics. For instance, they could eliminate early voting and no-excuse absentee ballots in states where they are currently available.”
Evidently, there are citizens of this country who are concerned about losing the very things the United States was built on: democracy and the power of the people’s voice. Going forward, it is imperative that both government officials and everyday Americans ensure that the democratic process is upheld in all future elections and that the people’s voice always prevails.