STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – President Donald Trump hasn’t conceded the 2020 election yet. He still thinks that the election was stolen from him.
His attorneys have launched lawsuits in a number of states, hoping to keep Democrat Joe Biden from being inaugurated on Jan. 20.
GOP Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has called for a signature audit of absentee ballots in his state after video emerged that the Trump forces claim shows election workers counting ballots after poll watchers were removed from the counting room.
Trump also alleges that the video shows workers taking illegal ballots from suitcases that had been stored under desks. Georgia election officials have strenuously disputed Trump’s claims.
Trump has also raised legal issues with vote counts in other states, including Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Trump wants state legislatures to withhold the awarding of electoral votes to Biden based on what the president says are rigged state presidential votes. He wants the case to get to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Having lawmakers overturn the certified results of an election, the very will of their own voters and constituents, is a very long shot indeed. Even Republicans have been slow to Trump’s side on this one.
And even though Trump has placed three justices on the Supreme Court, there’s no guarantee that Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett will vote the president’s way should the case land on their desks.
And it was especially damaging to see Attorney General William Barr, a usually reliable Trump thane, say that to date, the Department of Justice and the FBI had not found instances of voter fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
The Trump forces have tried to spin Barr’s comments away, but they can’t unring that bell.
But Trump, like any American, deserves his day in court, frivolous though his claims may seem to others.
What happens if the Supreme Court slaps Trump down? That’s up to Trump. Seeing as Trump prides himself on being a law-and-order guy, can he really ignore the Supreme Court if it rules against him?
Would Trump actually not attend the Biden inauguration and spit in the face of the peaceful transfer of power upon which our American democracy rests? Does patriot Trump think that would be a great American moment?
Sure, Trump supporters will tell you that the Dems didn’t give Trump a peaceful transfer of power after his electoral win in 2016. They hounded the president for four years. Will that be Trump’s reason if he chooses not to ride to the U.S. Capitol with Biden next month?
There will always be things about the 2020 election that simply don’t make sense, starting with the 130,000 votes that materialized for Biden in Michigan after the country went to sleep on election night.
And it will always be a puzzle how Trump failed to benefit even though Republicans did so well around the country, particularly in House races. And why Trump didn’t prevail despite his gains with African-American and Latino voters.
And if you think every election is on the level, check out Robert Caro’s magisterial multi-volume work on the life of President Lyndon Johnson.
You’ll see the shenanigans that LBJ engineered in order to ensure his own elections to the House and Senate, as well as how he helped running mate John F. Kennedy win crucial Texas in the razor-thin 1960 election against Republican Richard Nixon.
It happens. Trump’s claims can’t simply be dismissed out of hand, as much as some want to move on. But sooner or later, Trump is going to run out of clock.
If nothing else, the 2020 election has shown America why just about every other country around the world severely limits or outright prohibits mail-in voting. There are too many possibilities for fraud and for slow-walking the count, all of which undermines confidence in the system. Our great technological society can do better.
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December 05, 2020 at 10:00PM
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Along with court challenges, Trump needs an exit strategy too (opinion) - SILive.com
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