The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in several states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia in an attempt to question the validity of the vote counts and further fuel the (baseless) narrative that this is a “stolen election” riddled with fraud.
These suits come in states where Biden has either overtaken Trump’s earlier lead or is steadily closing the gap; they generally aim to halt the counting until observers are allowed "better access” to watch the count while also raising concerns about absentee ballots and contest a handful of votes that would not significantly advantage Trump. Of suits that have been struck down, one Pennsylvania court dismissed a complaint that GOP reps were being prevented from seeing the writing on mail-in ballots on the grounds that observing did not include auditing, and a judge in Georgia declared that there was no evidence that an alleged 53 ballots were accepted late.
While one suit did result in allowing Republican observers to watch the count from six feet away in PA, these actions appear desperate and are more evident of Trump's campaign’s diminishing optimism in the election (although that hasn’t stopped Trump from prematurely announcing himself the victor) than in succeeding to uncover any substantial accounts of fraud or irregularities.
This series of legal action coincides with President Trump’s urge to “STOP THE COUNT” in a moment that NYTimes calls “dangerous for American democracy” as Trump continues to undermine both his “supporters’ faith in the country’s government” and “the credibility of the United States around the world.” Trump’s message conflicts with his push to recount in Wisconsin, further revealing that the true motivations of his campaign is to count (or not count) the votes where it gives them an advantage or hinders Biden. More than concern about faithless electors, this entrenches the concern about faithless leadership in those putting power and party before country.
Ultimately consistent with the sentiment that they will not accept defeat, Trump's campaign behavior is evidence of a contentious road ahead.
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4 comments:
I find it interesting that Trump is filing so many lawsuits. It is highly unlikely that the suits will change the outcome of the election. It seems like he can't accept his loss. Whatever the reason, it does seem to be dangerous like you have said. His claims about voter fraud are pretty provocative, and could perhaps appeal to the fragment of his supporters who are chauvinistic (this kind of goes with the fact that he refused to openly condemn white supremacy)(also I'm not saying all of his supporters are this way, but there are definitely some). I think that perpetrating these baseless claims only results in more division and tension, which can be dangerous, especially given everything that has happened in the past year. The fact that so many buildings were boarded up this weekend adds to that, as it shows that people were expecting violence and unrest because of how tense and polarized everything is. Hopefully everything stays peaceful (I haven't heard of anything too violent happening yet, but it's hard to know if we're in a calm before a storm or if things are just calm and will stay that way).
In response to Pariya, I agree—I definitely think this is partly a case of Trump being a "sore loser." It is also very ironic that Trump is contesting the presidential results but not so much the Senate elections, in which the Republican party did quite strongly in, as both of these decisions were made on the same ballot. I don't believe that these lawsuits will amount to any significant changes in the overall election results, when most of the nation seems to be moving forward—Biden has already announced a Covid-Advisory Board, moving forward with his agenda as president-elect.
Judging from the response to all of Trump's Tweets, it seems as if it were all bluff. His lawsuits in unison with the mostly conservative Supreme Court surely instilled some worry, but as Niyati stated, people are beginning to move forward. The only worrying part is about the people supporting Trump. Trump's strong influence on his supporters in combination with Republicans' tendency to only surround themselves with people of the same view could separate America even more than Trump did himself during his Presidency.
Looking at these lawsuits and the way that Trump is acting, you can see that he is clearly just being petty since the election hasn’t gone his way. He was too quick to claim that he was going to win and after mail-in ballots were counted, several states turned red to blue, causing him to call “fake” ballots and tampering. Even if he is attempting to sue several states, he has no evidence to back up his claims as seen as judges ruling against him. These lawsuits won’t change anything greatly and instead will just create more divide between people.
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