Trump and Republicans believe Biden’s election victory can still be reversed

Trump and Republicans believe Biden’s election victory can still be reversed
Source: Carlos Barria, Reuters
As the days move slowly toward January 20, Inauguration Day, many Republicans continue to state that President Trump will emerge victorious and Biden’s victory will be overturned, one way or another. However, time is running out for the Trump campaign.

On Saturday, November 7, The Associated Press (AP), one of the most trusted media sources for election coverage, called the 2020 presidential election for former Vice President Joe Biden. But despite that having been weeks ago now, President Donald Trump and the GOP are still refusing to concede the election to Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

After losing court cases and lawsuits around the country, the Trump campaign still has one ace up its sleeve: flipping state electors.

Why the results aren’t “official”

Even though the race was called by media sources, Biden’s win won’t be officially sealed until December 14, when electors from each state cast their votes. When Americans cast their votes on Election Day, what they are actually voting for is a presidential elector. The responsibility of choosing the next president and vice president lies in the hands of these electors and it is this group that then votes “on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December.”

Six days before the electors meet, states must meet the “safe harbor” deadline (December 8, 2020). This is the last day states have to ratify the Election Day results, otherwise Congress could intervene in the process. A congressional intervention has only happened once, in 2000, but it could happen this year if there are serious issues over vote counts.

After electors vote, they send their election certification to their state’s chief election official (usually the secretary of state) as well as to the national archives and the current president of the United States Senate (currently Mike Pence).

Finally, on January 6, the House and Senate count the electoral votes together and, after one candidate has received at least 270 electoral votes, the result is ratified by the vice president and sent to the sitting US president.

Trump’s unlikely last resort

Despite not securing enough votes to win the electoral college or the popular vote, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that a majority of Republicans believe that Trump rightfully won an election that they think was “rigged.”

In a last-gasp attempt to overturn the results in battleground states that Biden won, Trump allies have urged Republican-led state legislatures to ignore their state’s votes for Biden and instead appoint Trump electors.

In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits challenging the election results in federal court. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer and now the head of the campaign’s legal team, supports allowing Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature to select the state’s electors.

Right wing media figures have also been loudly trumpeting the idea that states won by Biden should overturn the will of voters and declare Trump the winner of the November 3 election.

Mark Levin, a prominent conservative radio host, tweeted, in all caps, “Reminder to the Republican state legislatures, you have the final say over the choosing of electors … Get ready to do your constitutional duty.”

Levin’s tweet was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. and a number of Republican state legislatures have reportedly considered this option.

Six of the most closely-contested states in this election have both legislative chambers controlled by Republicans, meaning that this option is on the table for Republicans, though it would still be likely to fail.

Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania all have Democratic governors who would need to certify the official count and they could argue that the electors could not lawfully go to Trump. Additionally, Secretary of State Katie Hobbes, a Democrat, oversees elections in Arizona. She has the power to certify voting results in favor of Biden, who won the state in the general election.

Legal experts have also discussed the likelihood that Trump and his allies could overturn the electoral system, with most agreeing that the plan would be, at best, very unlikely to succeed.

States chose their electors on November 3. They cannot take back the delegates they have chosen to vote in their states unless they change the law. Adav Noti, chief of staff at the Campaign Legal Center, believes Trump’s lawyers have already run out of time because the Constitution states Congress “set the time of appointment as Nov. 3.”

“The legislative power to determine the method of appointment lasted until Nov. 3,” Noti added.

Additionally, the Supreme Court just this year upheld laws binding electors with their pledged candidate. The court ruled unanimously that states had the ability to remove and punish presidential electors who pledge their support to other candidates.

More importantly though, widespread support among GOP leaders is also in decline. The majority leader in Pennsylvania’s state Senate wrote an op-ed stating that, in regards to choosing presidential electors, the general assembly “has no hand in this process whatsoever.”

In Michigan, the state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey told Bridge Michigan that state law awards electors to the winner of the state’s electoral college and that a coup from the legislature is “not going to happen.”

As the days move slowly toward January 20, Inauguration Day, many Republicans continue to state that President Trump will emerge victorious and Biden’s victory will be overturned, one way or another. However, time is running out for the Trump campaign.

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