Trump, Republicans continue campaign to overturn election

Patrick Martin



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/12/elec-n12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Democratic President-elect Joe Biden increased his overall lead in the popular vote to more than five million Wednesday, with 77.4 million votes, the most ever won by a US presidential candidate, compared to 72.3 million votes for President Donald Trump.

Biden’s percentage of the popular vote reached 50.8 percent, as more votes were counted in the heavily Democratic West Coast states, which allow late-arriving mail ballots as long as they were postmarked by November 3. His share of the popular vote is the highest for any candidate challenging an incumbent president since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1932 landslide victory over Herbert Hoover, exceeding that of Ronald Reagan in 1980 (50.7 percent).

The former vice president maintained his leads in four closely contested states, with his margins actually increasing to 14,112 in Georgia, 36,726 in Nevada and 50,215 in Pennsylvania. Biden’s lead in Arizona fell to 12,813, but nearly every ballot has been counted there and both Fox News and the Associated Press “called” the state for the Democrat on election night.

Victory in those four states would give Biden 306 electoral votes, compared to 232 for Trump, when the Electoral College assembles in various state capitals on December 14. That assumes Trump maintains his 70,000-vote lead in the remaining “uncalled” state, North Carolina, which is awaiting the counting of tens of thousands of provisional, mail-in and military ballots.

The scale of Biden’s popular vote victory and his comfortable margin in the Electoral College—the same 306 electoral votes that Trump called a “landslide” when he hit that mark in 2016—only underscore the extraordinarily anti-democratic and ominous character of Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election. This intransigence has been backed by the vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate, who have refused to acknowledge that Biden is president-elect.

Vote-counting, recanvassing and litigation continued in all the closely contested states Wednesday, with the Trump campaign failing to make any gains on the legal front. By one tabulation, Trump’s advocates were 0 for 10 in court decisions and had so far been unable to convince a single judge to delay the certification of the results.

In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, rejected demands from the state’s two Republican senators that he resign for alleged faulty oversight of the voting, in which both Republican incumbents were forced into a January 5 runoff against Democratic challengers. Raffensperger said there would be a hand recount of the more than five million votes cast in the state, affecting both the presidential race and the two Senate contests.

In Arizona, the state attorney general, Republican Mark Brnovich, said Trump was “very, very unlikely” to win enough of the remaining uncounted ballots to overcome Biden’s lead. “It does appear Joe Biden will win Arizona,” he told Fox Business, saying there was no evidence of fraud or widespread irregularities in the voting or the vote-counting.

In Michigan, Republican challenges to vote-counting in suburban Oakland County, which Biden carried by a wide margin, were thrown out Tuesday. Overall, Trump’s defeat in the state, by a sizeable 146,000 votes, came from a swing against him among white working class voters, particularly in the Wayne, Oakland and Macomb County suburbs, compared to 2016.

On Wednesday, the Trump campaign went to federal court seeking to bar the state from certifying Biden’s victory in Michigan. The resort to federal rather than state courts is significant, since it indicates an intention to begin a chain of legal appeals that would take the issue to the US Supreme Court, where Trump has appointed three of the nine justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed and sworn in just before the election.

In the most critical state, Pennsylvania, whose 20 electoral votes put Biden over the top in the Electoral College, a Republican lawsuit was heard in Montgomery County, in the Philadelphia suburbs, which went heavily for Biden. The hearing included the following remarkable exchange in court, between Judge Richard P. Haaz and Trump campaign lawyer Jonathan S. Goldstein, over 592 mail ballots being challenged by the Republicans.

THE COURT: I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

THE COURT: Are you claiming that there is any undue or improper influence upon the elector with respect to these 592 ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

On Monday, the most sensational allegation of Trump’s supporters in Pennsylvania, about systematic mail-ballot vote fraud in Erie collapsed when a postal worker who had come forward as a purported whistleblower admitted that his claims of ballot-stuffing were fabricated. The postal worker had received $130,000 in donations from right-wing sources before he made his admission. Senator Lindsey Graham, Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had all cited this false account as the basis for charges of vote fraud.

It is increasingly clear that the purpose of the flurry of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign is not to actually shift the results of the vote-counting, since there is no evidence of fraud and the number of ballots in question is too small to affect the outcome. The aim is to discredit the vote-counting as a pretext for Republican-controlled state legislatures in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona to step in and name slates of pro-Trump electors, rather than the pro-Biden electors chosen by the voters.

There is tight timetable for Trump and his co-conspirators to engineer such an electoral coup in Michigan. Most Michigan counties have completed their mandatory recanvass of the balloting, and the state is on track to meet its November 17 deadline for certification of the vote. That would be followed by Biden electors assembling in the state capital, Lansing, to cast the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Not counting the electoral votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, Biden would have 227 electoral votes and Trump 232, creating an illusion of parity. Actually, Biden is leading in all six states by a combined total of 280,000 votes.

Trump needs to block the certification of Biden’s victory in at least four of these states in order to keep him below 270 in the Electoral College, or engineer the outright hijacking of electoral votes by the state legislatures, which are Republican-controlled in all but Nevada.

At least one state representative in Wisconsin, Republican Joe Sanfelippo, has endorsed the selection of Trump delegates for the Electoral College, setting aside the popular vote. He has been appointed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to a committee that is investigating the election results.

A group of Pennsylvania state representatives have backed a similar effort to steal that state’s electoral votes, or at least delay certification of a Biden victory, required by November 23, but the Republican leader of the state Senate has so far disavowed it. That is why Trump recently tweeted about the need to elect a new leadership for the Republican caucus in the Pennsylvania legislature.

In both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the state legislatures would have to defy state laws that award the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most support from state voters.

As Trump and the Republican Party are well aware, their greatest asset is the cowardice and duplicity of their political opponents, Biden and the Democratic Party. Biden is doing everything in his power to downplay the dictatorial character of Trump’s moves, dismiss the danger to democratic rights, and politically disarm the population.

As the Socialist Equality Party (US) Political Committee explained in its statement (“Stop Trump’s conspiracy to nullify the 2020 elections!”) posted Wednesday on the World Socialist Web Site:


The only viable response to the conspiracy being hatched in the White House is the demand for the immediate removal of Trump, Pence and their co-conspirators.

This demand can be realized only through the independent intervention of the working class and the struggle to organize a nationwide political strike.

Greg Palast: How Democrats Also Rig Elections

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9hW9hkjwZo&ab_channel=StatusCoup

Trump packs Pentagon with right-wing loyalists

Bill Van Auken




https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/12/pent-n12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Among the most ominous actions taken by the Trump White House as it seeks to nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election is a wholesale shakeup of the top civilian leadership of the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump is keenly aware that his attempt to pull off an extra-constitutional coup and remain in the White House cannot be accomplished without resort to extreme repression against an inevitable popular eruption against such a coup. To this end, he is placing a gang of extreme right-wing ideologues and loyalists in key positions.

The purge began on Monday with the summary sacking—by tweet—of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, which reportedly took the entire uniformed command of the US military by surprise. Even more shocking to the military brass was Esper’s replacement.

The new “acting” Pentagon chief will be Christopher Miller, a 30-year Special Forces operative and retired colonel with no experience in the upper echelons of the military command. Trump has deliberately cultivated support within the 70,000-strong Special Forces, including through war crimes pardons, with the aim of transforming this quasi-independent force into his praetorian guard.

Miller is viewed within the military brass as wholly unprepared to assume the post of defense secretary. His main qualification is his unreserved support for Trump, demonstrated while serving on the National Security Council at the White House, and his willingness to use military repression against domestic protesters.

Before assuming his previous position as director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC), he testified at his Senate confirmation hearing that he would not oppose the NCTC sharing intelligence on US citizens with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of suppressing protests.

Esper’s ouster was followed on Tuesday by the resignation of the third-ranking official at the Pentagon, James Anderson, the undersecretary of defense for policy, and his replacement by retired general and Fox News commentator Anthony Tata. Trump nominated Tata for the post last August, but was forced to rescind the appointment after the Senate canceled confirmation hearings in the face of Tata’s record of referring to former president Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader,” a “Manchurian candidate” and a Muslim. Tata was then installed at the Pentagon in a made-up position as an assistant to Anderson. Now, an Islamophobic fascist occupies the No. 3 post in the US war machine.

In his resignation letter, Anderson wrote, “Now, as ever, our long-term success depends on adhering to the US Constitution all public servants swear to support and defend.” In reporting on the resignation, Breaking Defense noted, “Such sentences are not boilerplate in a senior official’s resignation letter and this was clearly designed to send a message.” Indeed, Esper included almost identical language in his last message to the military, praising it for “remaining apolitical, and for honoring your oath to the Constitution.”

Trump’s determination to rid himself of Esper stems from the events of early June, in which the White House deployed federal security forces and sought to put US troops on the streets to suppress the mass protests triggered by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Esper publicly opposed Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to deploy US troops throughout the country to put down the protests. He declared that such action could be only a “last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations.” He added, “We are not in one of those situations now.”

This opposition from an official whose subservience to the White House had earned him the nickname “Yesper” reflected grave concerns that such a domestic deployment was not necessary and could tear the military apart. Trump was reportedly infuriated by Esper’s statement and was determined from then on to replace him with someone who would not oppose his attempts to use the military in pursuit of a presidential dictatorship.

An indication of the vindictive purge atmosphere at the Pentagon was provided by the Republican columnist Bill Kristol. Citing conversations with senior military officials, Kristol reported: “When Jim Anderson was fired yesterday as Acting Undersecretary for Policy, he was given a ‘clap-out’ as he left the building. The WH called to request the names of any political appointees who joined in so they could be fired.”

Two other appointments of Trump loyalists to top positions indicate the scope of the extreme right-wing political takeover of the Pentagon. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Joseph Kernan, a retired three-star Navy admiral, was replaced by Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 34-year-old right-wing operative who gained positions in the military and intelligence apparatus based on his political connections with Trump’s former adviser Stephen Bannon and ex-National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, as well as with Jared Kushner. He proved himself to Trump by leaking secret CIA documents that were supposed to prove government spying on the Trump campaign to California Republican Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and member of Trump’s transition team.

The fourth appointment was that of Kash Patel, who is replacing Jen Stewart as chief of staff of the defense secretary. Patel, a former staff member of Nunes, had previously been named to a position created especially for him on the National Security Council. Trump referred to him as a “Ukraine policy specialist,” and he was widely suspected of being part of the effort to pressure the Ukrainian government for damaging information about Joe Biden.

On Wednesday, the new acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, announced his first major appointment, naming retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor as his senior adviser. A frequent Fox News commentator, Macgregor has denounced the European Union and Germany for welcoming “unwanted Muslim invaders,” who, he claimed, had the “the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state.” He has also derided attempts in Germany to deal with the crimes of the Nazis as part of a “sick mentality” and called for the imposition of martial law on the US-Mexico border. As a deliberate provocation, Trump tried to nominate the colonel as ambassador to Berlin.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has very close relations with the national security apparatus, cited speculation in the Pentagon command that Trump might be installing his handpicked loyalists to carry out accelerated troop withdrawals during his last days in office. He added, however, “A darker possibility is that Trump wants a Pentagon chief who can order the military to take steps that might help keep him in power because of an election result that he claims is fraudulent.”

William Cohen, former secretary of defense and Republican senator, told CNN that the administration’s shakeup at the Pentagon was “more akin to a dictatorship than a democracy.” Similarly, CNN cited an unnamed senior defense official as saying: “This is scary, it’s very unsettling. These are dictator moves.”

The placing of key levers of power within the massive US military apparatus in the hands of a cabal of fascistic Trump loyalists poses immense dangers to the working class in the United States and all over the world. With 68 days left until Inauguration Day, Trump’s tightened political grip over the Pentagon can be used to launch acts of military aggression and manufacture the pretext for a declaration of martial law and the suspension of constitutional and democratic rights.

Biden and the Democratic Party have treated the wholesale purge at the Pentagon as a “national security” problem, suggesting that the greatest worry is that Trump’s reshuffling of senior officials will weaken US imperialism vis-à-vis Russia and China. Above all, they are determined to conceal that Trump’s actions pose a serious threat to what remains of democratic rights and forms of rule in the United States.

Far more than the threat of a coup and dictatorship, the Democratic Party, representing the interests of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, fears an eruption of popular protest and mass resistance from below against Trump and his co-conspirators.

Dems Nepotism Just As Bad As Trump's

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCKh5Ekcwj0&ab_channel=GrahamElwood

Australian government slashes JobSeeker to force more workers into low-paid jobs

Mike Head




https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/12/welf-n12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Prime Minister Scott Morrison was blatant on Tuesday when he announced that his government’s JobSeeker payments for unemployed workers would be cut by another $100 a fortnight from the end of December.

“We cannot allow the lifeline that has been extended to also now hold Australia back as we move into the next phases of recovery,” Morrison said. In other words, the “lifeline” that has kept some 1.5 million workers from outright destitution during the worst recession since the 1930s Great Depression must be withdrawn for the sake of the supposed “recovery.”

By doing so, the government is intensifying its efforts to fully “reopen the economy,” despite the worsening global COVID-19 resurgence, by herding millions of jobless workers into low-paid work on poor conditions in order to boost profits.

Even according to the forecasts of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the official understated unemployment rate will still be around 8 percent, or nearly 1.1 million workers, in March. And that does not include the more than 4 million workers who remain on JobKeeper wage subsidies, which are due to be scrapped in March.

Having already reduced its temporary dole “coronavirus supplement” from $550 a fortnight in March to $250 in September, the government intends to slash it to $150. It is also leaving open the option of removing it altogether at the end of March, reverting to the pre-pandemic starvation level of $40 a day.

For now, the government is reducing the allowance to what is itself a poverty rate of around $715 a fortnight for single adults—just $10.70 a day above the pre-pandemic level.

It is doing so with the essential backing of the Labor Party opposition, which has committed to pass the necessary legislation as quickly as possible. Labor has suggested only keeping some unspecified, reduced “coronavirus supplement” beyond March, offering that as a better means of achieving a “recovery.”

Labor’s stated concern is not for the jobless workers who face impoverishment, especially as moratoriums on mortgage repayments and rental evictions are already being wound back. Its sole criticism of the government is that it is prematurely ending “stimulus” measures that have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into corporate pockets since March.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, Labor leader Anthony Albanese refused to answer a journalist’s question about what level of JobSeeker Labor wanted after March. Instead, he asked why the government was “cutting things right now.” He said: “Now is not the time to be withdrawing support from the economy.”

Once again, as it demonstrated in voting for the government’s October 6 budget—which handed $50 billion in tax cuts to high-income recipients—Labor has no disagreement with using the mass unemployment and acute social distress triggered by the pandemic to further restructure economic and social relations in the interests of the capitalist class.

There was no criticism by Labor of Morrison’s other declaration at his media conference on Tuesday. Flanked by Families and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston, he boasted that the government had already stepped up its “mutual obligation” measures to cut jobless workers off payments if they allegedly failed to look hard enough for work or did not accept a job offer.

In just one month, the government has suspended JobSeeker payments to more than a quarter of a million people, and has enforced outright cancellations, for breaching its rules, which require recipients to apply for at least eight jobs a month, regardless of whether any jobs exist in their field or not.

“There have been close to 260,000 suspensions, and for the 4th August to the 31st of October there have been 242 payment cancellations,” Morrison emphasised. “So the mutual obligation requirements are there and we are serious about them.”

Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) chief executive Cassandra Goldie described the coronavirus supplement’s reduction to $150 a fortnight as “a crushing blow” for unemployed workers. “A permanent ongoing solution is to fix the adequacy of people’s incomes.”

Goldie dismissed as a “distraction,” Morrison’s claim that employers were struggling to hire workers, saying Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data showed 12 people looking for every job vacancy, or for more hours.

For all the government’s efforts to talk up the prospects of “recovery” and restoring business and consumer “confidence,” the latest payroll data from the ABS revealed a new drop in employment last month.

The ABS’s Head of Labour Statistics Bjorn Jarvris said in a media release: “Nationally, payroll jobs fell for the second fortnight in a row, and were 4.4 percent lower than mid-March. This fall includes a flattening in payroll jobs for the most recent week.”

Over the month to October 17, payroll jobs fell by 1.7 percent across Australia. They dropped in each state and territory, not just Victoria, where the state Labor government is still in the process of lifting lockdown restrictions to meet the demands of big business.

Significantly, however, there was a sharp rise in the number of payroll jobs worked by teenagers—up by 10.1 percent since March 14. By far the biggest rise was in the retail industry, with a 20 percent jump in teenage employment. This indicates that employers are replacing older, better-paid workers with low-paid, short-term and insecure teenagers, especially in the notorious “gig economy.”

At the end of September, when the JobSeeker benefits were reduced from $600 a week to just over $400, JobKeeper wage allotments were also cut, from $750 a week to the minimum wage level of $650.

Modelling produced at the Australian National University (ANU) estimated that 740,000 more people were thrown into poverty—even by a conservative measure—through these cuts. As a result, almost 16 percent of the population, or more than 4 million people, were living in poverty.

According to the modelling, the number of people in poverty, after housing costs are included, would rise to 5.8 million, or about a quarter of the population, if the JobSeeker supplements and JobKeeper wage subsidies were eliminated in March.

The situation could be even worse because the resurging pandemic in the United States and Europe is likely to deepen the global crash. Citing a “downside risk to the outlook” due to the situation in Europe, the Reserve Bank last week cut official interest rates to near zero, and vowed not to lift them for three years. It also formally joined other central banks internationally in pumping billions of dollars into the financial markets via “quantitative easing.”

Under the cynical slogan of “creating jobs,” both the Liberal-National Coalition and the trade union-backed Labor Party are handing billions more dollars to big business and the wealthiest layers of society, while coercing workers into low-paid employment in order to drive up corporate profits.

Lee Camp Ledger, Week Of Nov 10, 2020

Since we all just lived through a depressing electoral season I decided to make this episode all about good news — this week on Redacted Tonight

Graham Elwood & I review 10 of the CIA’s favorite fascist monsters — on this episode of Government Secrets

Eleanor and I dig into election responses — on our podcast Common Censored

A glass of milk proves how capitalism cannot survive without exploitation & destruction — on Moment Of Clarity

Don’t get distracted from the fact that they’re both war criminals & I know you know who I’m talking about — on Moment Of Clarity

There are better, more democratic ways to run a society than our Oligarchy — on Moment Of Clarity

When centrists Dems lose elections the Corporate Media blame the Left — on FAIR

Carol Fife, an Oakland organizer, sparked a national housing justice movement a year ago & now she’s headed to the Oakland City Council - on The Appeal

After a $200 million propaganda blitz, California voters passed the Uber- and Lyft-backed Proposition 22 on Tuesday, permanently excluding online “platform” workers from labor protections & now they want to spread their anti-worker campaign across the country — on Jacobin

America’s election debacle highlights the anti-democratic hijinks employed by both parties — on MintPress News: Behind the Headlines





Welcome back to the Ledger,

What a time to be alive. (Insert “scary” into that sentence if you want.) The Trump Administration is posturing for a coup and the Dems are threatening to do nothing to address the most pressing issues of our time when they do get into power.

Our future is in our own hands.

Keep fighting!

- Lee




A Glass Of Milk Proves Capitalism Wrong


Did Your War Criminal Win?


It Didn't Need To Be This Way





Biden Wins, America Loses & Russia Disappears





Election Aftermath, Top 10 CIA-Backed Fascists





CIA-Backed Coups Collapsing


Nestlé Held To Account Over Stolen Water



Click to watch the full episode.

When Centrists Lose, Corporate Media Blame the Left

FAIR | Julie Hollar

Joe Biden hadn’t even been declared the victor of the 2020 election before establishment Democrats, in the face of poorer-than-expected results in House and Senate races, began pointing fingers at the left—with corporate media giving them a major assist.

Democrats had been hoping for big wins on election night, with the possibility of winning not only the presidency but also the Senate, and increasing their majority in the House. But while Biden has come out on top, the party’s most optimistic outcome in the Senate would be a 50/50 split (if they win both Georgia runoff seats), giving them a majority with the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. And rather than gaining in the House, Democrats lost several seats.

Click to read.
Carroll Fife’s Fight For Unhoused Mothers Sparked A Movement Across The Country. Now She’s On The Oakland City Council Ready To Transform The City.

The Appeal | Eoin Higgins

A year ago, Carroll Fife helped a group of homeless mothers take control of a vacant home in West Oakland as part of a grassroots effort to show that housing should be a basic “human right.” That protest—and the city’s controversial response to it—propelled Fife into the national spotlight and on Monday, following a concession from her opponent, incumbent City Council member Lynette Gibson McElhaney, the longtime activist took another step in her fight against inequality: election to the City Council.

Fife won her bid for the council after running on a broad platform promising to address injustice and racial inequities across the city. The platform was part of what she described to The Appeal in October as a long overdue program of dismantling systems of racial oppression that have lingered in America for decades since the civil rights movement.

Click to read.
With Prop 22’s Passage in California, Tech Companies Are Just Writing Their Own Laws Now

Jacobin | Alex N. Press

On Tuesday, California voters passed Proposition 22, a ballot measure backed by app-based “gig” companies that exempts them from classifying their estimated three hundred thousand workers as employees. Included in Proposition 22’s fine print is a requirement that the measure cannot be modified with less than seven-eighths of the state legislature’s approval, all but ensuring it cannot be overturned.

The measure’s success is a landmark in the story of rule by the rich. Were there any doubts before, Proposition 22’s success proves that capitalists can write their own laws — you can expect every executive in the United States to take notice.

Click to read.
America’s Election Debacle Highlights Anti-Democratic Hijinks of Both Parties

MintPress News - Behind the Headlines | Dan Cohen

It’s been days since the U.S. election, and there is still no official winner. But no matter the result, President Trump is determined to stay in office. Behind The Headlines correspondent Dan Cohen explains how the bipartisan foreign policy establishment cheers on anti-democratic action abroad but abhors it at home.




Keep fighting!

- Lee

Trump's legal gambit fizzles — but it's still dangerous

Judd Legum Nov 12






The Trump campaign continues to send dozens of fundraising emails every day. As Popular Information reported this week, these emails purport to seek cash to support Trump's legal efforts to challenge the election. But the money actually goes to pay down Trump's campaign debt and to the Republican National Committee's general operating account.

But whoever is writing these emails for Trump doesn't seem to have their heart in it anymore. Here's an excerpt from an email sent on Wednesday morning:


I had such a big lead in all of these key battleground states late into Election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward, but only if we have the resources to KEEP FIGHTING!

This is a campaign known for its bluster and bravado. Now, the strongest statement it can muster is "perhaps these leads will return." What happened?

Trump has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in court. And the campaign's various allegations of fraud have rapidly fallen apart. His lawyers have largely stopped trying to prove fraud and instead are asking courts to prevent states from certifying results — and then hope the state legislatures in multiple states simply declare Trump the winner.

The fact that Trump is trying to convince the courts to declare him the winner of an election he lost is a direct attack on the foundation of American democracy. And the willingness of Republican elected officials to go along with it makes it worse.
Fraudulent fraud allegations

Trump's core claim is that he lost several key states as a result of widespread election fraud. Since Trump trails by tens of thousands of votes in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, the scale of the alleged fraud would have to be massive.

Yet, when Trump's lawyers appear in court — even to contest a small number of ballots — they've been forced to acknowledge they have no evidence of fraud. For example, an attorney representing the Trump campaign appeared in court to contest about 600 ballots in Pennsylvania. Under questioning from the judge, he admitted that he had no evidence that any of the ballots were fraudulent.


THE COURT: I understand. I am asking you a specific question, and I am looking for a specific answer. Are you claiming that there is any fraud in connection with these 592 disputed ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present, no.

THE COURT: Are you claiming that there is any undue or improper influence upon the elector to these 592 ballots?

MR. GOLDSTEIN: To my knowledge at present. no.

The main "deficiency" of these ballots is that the voter did not handwrite their address on the return envelope or wrote the address in the wrong location.

Under further questioning by the judge, the Trump campaign lawyer admitted that the 592 ballots in question had been "segregated" and not yet included in any count. Trump trails in Pennsylvania by nearly 50,000 votes. The existence of this litigation allows the Trump campaign to say it is pursuing litigation. But this case has no chance of impacting the results in Pennsylvania.

In Michigan, the Trump campaign filed suit claiming that late-arriving ballots had been fraudulently backdated. But the Trump campaign lawyer had no admissible evidence to support that claim. Rather, a poll watcher for Trump, Jessica Connarn, said that an unknown person told her that another person had said. In a scathing opinion, the judge dismissed the Trump campaign's case.


The assertion that Connarn was informed by an unknown individual what ‘other hired poll workers at her table’ had been told is inadmissible hearsay within hearsay, and plaintiffs have provided no hearsay exception...that would warrant consideration of the evidence

Trump trails in Michigan by 146,000 votes.

In Georgia, the Trump campaign challenged 53 ballots based on the claim from another poll watcher, Sean Pumphrey, who said they arrived late. But in court, Pumphrey and another witness "admitted under oath that they did not know whether the challenged ballots were received on time." Meanwhile, an official for the local election board "affirmed that the ballots were on time." The judge quickly dismissed the Trump campaign's case, saying there was "no evidence" to support it. Trump trails in Georgia by more than 14,000 votes.
The Hail Mary

Unable to prove fraud, the Trump campaign has shifted its legal strategy. In Michigan, the campaign filed suit on Wednesday asking the court to enjoin the Michigan Board of State

Canvassers from certifying the results.

The case is based on anecdotes to affidavits the Trump campaign collected from 100 people. In the affidavits, "poll challengers say they were denied access to portions of the vote counting, their challenges were not taken seriously or that several different types of ballot processing errors occurred." But, they "do not show proof of widespread fraud or egregious misconduct."

Several of the afflidavits include allegations that have already been rejected in other cases, including the claim that ballots were backdated. Other poll watchers claimed bias without explaining how that would impact the vote count:


Several Republican challengers at TCF complained about people inside the counting room wearing “Black Lives Matter” shirts. One Republican challenger complained she was called “Karen,” and told to go “back to the suburbs.” The moniker “Karen” has been applied to white women who make false and racially motivated allegations against Black people.

In other words, instead of going through the cumbersome process of proving massive fraud, the Trump campaign is alleging the atmosphere created the possibility of fraud. On that basis, the campaign is asking to prevent the certification of the results.

It goes unstated, but the theory is if the Trump campaign can prevent certification "state legislatures in Republican states could simply appoint a Republican slate of electors for Trump." This theory is also false. While the "Constitution does give state legislatures the right to set the manner for choosing presidential electors" states have "already set the manner: the use of popular election to assign Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis in every state but Nebraska and Maine."

Nevertheless, the Trump campaign is seemingly embracing this strategy, filing a similar suit to prevent certification in Pennsylvania. Republican officials know that these suits will almost certainly fail. But at the moment they are "humoring" Trump. It's a very dangerous game.

The legal effort has already provided a pretext to deny Biden resources intended to provide a smooth transition in the midst of a deadly pandemic. And if the Trump campaign can find a judge — and a state legislature — to entertain its radical theories, it could create a genuine crisis.