By the end of the momentous election night, it remained unclear whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump would win the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure the presidency. Hundreds of thousands of votes had yet to be counted, so a handful of critical states were too close to call on election night. By week's end, all major news outlets had declared Joe Biden the president-elect. However, following this announcement, President Trump refused to concede. In fact, he had claimed on election night that he had won. When Joe Biden was declared the real winner, Trump began saying what we all knew he was going to if he lost: the election is rigged, voter fraud, etc. We knew this was coming because he claimed millions of fraudulent votes were cast even when he won the election in 2016. Unsurprisingly, the voting integrity commission launched by his own administration found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and was disbanded in 2018 (Report, 2018).
Here we are doing the same dance in 2020, with President Trump claiming the election was fraudulent. Legally Mr. Trump has every right to pursue cases of fraud, and his administration has done so with vigor by filing dozens of lawsuits in courts across the nation. But to win a court case claiming fraud one must provide evidence, and no matter how hard his lawyers dig around, the fact remains that there is no evidence. As a result Trump has lost over a dozen cases from Georgia to Michigan, and the one case he did win in Pennsylvania will not change that election as the questionable ballots were not included in the state’s vote count (Purely, 2020).
So why is Mr. Trump doing this? He may be doing this to save face and assuage his wounded ego. Or he may be doing this to convince state legislators that they should pursue the “nuclear” route and assign their own electors to the electoral college as the vote counts just cannot be trusted. I personally believe the most likely explanation is because he stands to gain much by feeding his base these ideas of fraud. For one, he stands to gain monetarily, as seen by his many email pleas to his supporters to help fund the legal fight even though all donations under $8000 only go to a leadership PAC supporting him or the RNC (Donations, 2020). Most importantly, he stands to gain even greater influence among his base by denying a fair election. Instead, he will leave the White House while still claiming fraud, his supporters will believe him based on the 0 grams of evidence provided by his lawyers, and he will go around tweeting and holding rallies complaining about the “illegitimate” election. In my opinion, if Trump is alive and well in 2024 and there is not a smarter version of him by then, he will use this pent up energy to run again.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has been preparing for his coming presidency despite Trump’s denial. He has placed several climate-oriented leaders throughout his transition team, he has named 13 health experts to a COVID task force that will shape the nation’s response to the virus, and is choosing who he would like to fill the cabinet positions (secretary of state, attorney general, etc.) He has said that on day 1 of his presidency he will, among other executive orders, rejoin the World Health Organization, re-enter the Paris Climate Accord, and rescind the ban on immigration from certain predominantly Muslin countries (Biden, 2020).
References
Biden expected to unveil executive orders on day 1. (2020, November 9). Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/biden-executive-orders-presidency-day-1/
Donations under $8k to Trump ‘election defense’ instead go to president, RNC. (2020, November 11). Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-fundraising-insigh/donations-under-8k-to-trump-election-defense-instead-go-to-president-rnc-idUSKBN27R309
Purely outlandish stuff: Trump’s legal machine grinds to a halt. (2020, November 13). Retrieved from: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/13/trump-legal-team-cases-dropped-43649 2
Report: Trump commission did not find widespread voter fraud. (2018, August 3). Retrieved from: https://apnews.com/article/f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.