- Joe Biden has declared victory in the 2020 United States presidential election, but confusion still shrouds the results as President Donald Trump refuses to concede
- The Biden/Harris campaign victory is unlikely to be official for some time given the claims being made by President Trump and the Republican Party
- Essentially, the president is claiming several votes in Biden’s favour were received illegally after Election Day and that Republican legal observers were not allowed to watch the counting process in key battleground states
- There have also been reports circulating that dead people have been registered to vote and had their votes recorded
- These claims are, of course, unsubstantiated, but President Trump is launching several lawsuits in some states to investigate the alleged election fraud
- If the president can produce substantial evidence of fraud, it’s possible many votes will be cast aside in key states to potential swing them back in Trump’s favour
- If the evidence is not substantial enough, the Biden/Harris administration will take office on January 20
Joe Biden has declared victory in the 2020 United States presidential election, but confusion still shrouds the results as President Donald Trump refuses to concede.
While the final votes are still being counted, the Biden/Harris campaign is far-enough ahead in enough key states that most media organisations and pollsters are calling the victory a done deal.
The reality is, however, that Biden’s victory is unlikely official for quite some time, given the claims being made by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
What are Trump’s claims?
Giving the President Trump the benefit of the doubt, his refusal to concede victory and congratulate the Biden campaign is not so much a case of being a sore loser as demanding transparency for American voters in the election process.
The president has not been shy in his claims of voter fraud and his accusations of the Democrat Party “stealing” the election.
We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
But what are the actual claims behind this accusation?
At first, the president questioned a case of 128,000 newly-counted ballots in Michigan all going towards Joe Biden — not one vote went to Donald Trump or a third-party candidate.
The massive vote-dump was highlighted on Twitter by conservative columnist Matt Mackowiak, and the tweet was re-tweeted by Daily Wire writer Matt Walsh and then by President Trump himself.
However, Mackowiak deleted the tweet after it was revealed the suspicious Biden boost was allegedly the result of a simple typo in one county.
Since then, however, Donald Trump has made many other accusations — mostly that Republican legal observers were not allowed to watch the counting process in key battleground states, and that “tens of thousands” of votes were received illegally after 8:00 PM on Election Day.
Tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states. As a separate matter, hundreds of thousands of Votes were illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020
There have also been several reports of dead people allegedly being registered to vote and having their vote confirmed.
These claims are, of course, unsubstantiated, which is why Donald Trump is refusing to concede — he wants to substantiate them.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz told Fox News the president’s concerns can “very easily” be taken to the Supreme Court to determine if the election results are, as Trump claims, fraudulent.
“It’s hard to know what the facts are; it’s hard to know what the truth is. We have a process for ascertaining the truth,” Cruz said.
That process, he explained, is examination by the courts.
“We heard a report from one country in Michigan where the election software mistakenly counted 6000 votes that were cast for Donal Trump — it switched them to Joe Biden. Now, they apparently caught that, but that same software is used in 47 counties throughout Michigan,” he said.
“That needs to be examined to determine that there is not a problem counting the votes. The legal process is how you resolve those questions,” he said.
“We need to follow the law, and that means allowing the legal process to play out.”
What does this mean for Biden?
At this point in time, nothing.
As it stands, Donald Trump will remain president until January 20, 2021, at which point Joe Biden will be sworn in and take office.
In the interim, it’s likely the Trump administration will file several lawsuits in different states, with Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, saying on Sunday several lawsuits were busy being drafted. Giuliani said 10 lawsuits could be filed by the end of this week.
Of course, in order to win these cases — and, indeed, a Supreme Court case, if it gets that far — there will need to be substantial evidence of election fraud presented by the Trump campaign.
If the evidence is sufficient, there’s a chance many votes will be cast aside in the battleground states, potentially swinging them in Trump’s favour. If the evidence is insufficient, Trump will have to concede defeat and the Biden/Harris administration will hold office until at least 2024.