- Sophie Jost & Nandini Singh
"This Election was Rigged" - President Trump
“This Election was Rigged.” In a tweet on Friday, Trump denied losing the election despite the federal government’s top official on election security, Christopher Krebs, and various republican and democratic secretaries of state from individual states asserting that this election was “the most secure in American history.”
Many people joke that President Trump is not used to losing, which may be why he is falling to accept the aftermath of the election, but he seems to be serious and he has done everything in his power to turn the election around, including trying to persuade state election officials not to certify voting results. Overall, President Trump is trying to change the results of the election by bringing his charge of fraud to the Supreme Court. He claims that he would have won if illegal democratic votes had not been cast. Some argue that he’s doing this because the majority of the Supreme Court is conservative, and therefore their determination might lean in his favor. By doing this, Trump will be “mobilizing his fervent supporters,” according to CNN. For example, the Trump campaign tried to file a lawsuit against the state of Michigan because there weren't enough people to observe the voting taking place, but this was rejected as there wasn’t enough proof. Judges have dismissed practically all the lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign for lack of evidence or other legal flaws.
In any case, though Trump won North Carolina, he faced losses in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan and lost the popular vote by over 5 million votes. Until recently, the President refused to concede or even take any steps in that direction. Instead, President Trump insisted, “I WON THIS ELECTION BY A LOT.” In Pennsylvania, the Trump Administration tried stopping over 9000 mail-in ballots from being counted in Philadelphia and Montgomery counties on the days following election day. When President Trump asked to toss out ballots because information was missing on the outside of envelopes, Judge James C. Crumlish III confirmed that there was no evidence of fraud. To confirm the results, Georgia’s 5 million votes are being recounted by hand, which originally gave Biden the lead by 14,000 votes. Even Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, stated that the election was transparent, and he expects the results of the recount not to differ from the original results.
As Biden proceeded to win by 11,000 votes in Arizona, the Trump Administration jumped to say that the ballots were mishandled and pointed at them as the reason Trump lost the election. Despite these efforts, the lawsuit was dismissed as well. Due the administration’s losses in court, several law firms have opted off the President’s legal team.
A number of the President’s supporters are protesting using the slogan, “Stop the Steal.” A “Stop the Steal” Facebook Group was formed to help plan the rallies, but it was taken down by Facebook because some members were threatening to use violence. Trump supporters are understandably angry because he didn’t win, but instead of accepting the loss, they are perpetuating the idea that the election was “stolen” from him. Despite all of this confusion and controversy, Biden remains the President-elect of the United States. To the President’s credit, however, the head of GSA (General Services Administration), Emily Murphy, began granting access to critical resources, including classified intelligence reports, to the Biden transition, team.