South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Trump legal fight based on his base
Aides, allies: Vote fraud claims aimed to keep fans loyal
WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump has promised legal action in the comingdays ashe refused to concede his loss to Democrat and presumptive President-elect Joe Biden, making an aggressive pitch for donors to help finance any court fight.
Trump and his campaign have leveled accusations of large-scale voter fraud in Pennsylvania and other states that broke for Biden, so far without proof.
But senior officials, campaign aides and allies told The Associated Press that overwhelming evidence of fraud isn’t really the point.
The strategy to wage a legal fight against the votes tallied for Biden in Pennsylvania and other places is more to provide Trump with an off-ramp for a loss and less about changing the election’s outcome, the officials said. They spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.
Trump aides and allies also acknowledged privately the legal fightswould, at best, forestall the inevitable, and some had deep reservations about the president’s attempts to undermine faith in the vote. But they said Trump and a core group of loyalists were aiming to keep his base of supporters on his side even in defeat.
And while some in his circle were nudging Trump to concede graciously, many of his Republican allies, including on Capitol Hill, were egging him on or giving him space to process the loss — at least for the time being.
“Trump has not lost,” declared South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham in an appearance on Fox News
Channel’s “SundayMorning Futures,” regarding the situation. “Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard,” he urged.
Trump’s adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, have also urged their father to keep fighting.
There has never been a presidential election in memory where such widespread fraudwas alleged.
Moments after the AP called the race for Biden, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani stood in front of campaign banner taped over the garage door of a Philadelphia landscaping company with a handful of poll watchers and declared they’d been kept too far away to check for any inaccuracies.
“We have no way of knowing, because we’ve been deprived of the right to inspect ballots,” he said.
Partisan pollwatchers are designated by a political party or campaign to report any concerns theymayhave.
They are not poll workers who actually tally ballots. Monitoring polling places and election offices is allowed in most states, but rules vary and there are certain limits to avoid any harassment or intimidation. They are not allowed to interfere with the conduct of the election and are typically required to register in advance with the local election office.
This year, because of the coronavirus that has infected nearly 10 million and killed more than 237,000 people across the country, there was litigation in a few states, including Pennsylvania, over where poll watchers could stand to ensure social distancing.
Lawyers could potentially argue the vote tally should be cast aside over fraud observed by poll watchers, but in order to win that argument they’d need evidence, not just allegations the monitors weren’t allowed to see clearly
enough. Judges are loathe to disenfranchise any voters and there would need to be substantial proof that fraud had damaged the count so much that it must be set aside.
Democratic poll watchers, who were alsogiven the same access, have not raised concerns. Giuliani called evidence of fraud circumstantial at the news conference. He said he’d be filing suit in federal court, but the issue has already been before judges.
On “SundayMorning Futures,” Giuliani said two additional lawsuits were in the process of being drafted, in addition to existing litigation in Pennsylvania.
By the end of this week, Giuliani predicted the campaignwould have filed “four or five” lawsuits, with a total of 10 possible.
Voter fraud is extremely rare, and when it does happen, people are generally caught and prosecuted and it does not change the out
come of the election. Typically, it involves someone wanting tohonorthewishes of a loved one who recently died and either knowingly or not commits a crime by filling out that ballot.
Trumpcampaignofficials have also alleged that more than 21,000 had been cast in the name of the dead in Pennsylvania. The claims stem from a conservative legal group’s lawsuit against the secretary of state, accusing her ofwrongly including some 21,000 supposedly dead residents on voter rolls.
The federal judge who has the case, JohnJones, has said he was doubtful of the claims. He said the Public Interest Legal Foundation that brought the claims was asking the court to accept that therewere dead people on voter rolls, and he asked for proof and questioned why they had waited until the “eleventh hour” to file suit.
“We cannot and will not take plaintiff’s word for it —in an election where every vote matters, we will not disenfranchise potentially eligible voters based solely upon the allegations of a private foundation,” he wrote in an Oct. 20 ruling.
Even Trump’s own administration has pushed back at the claims of widespread voter fraud and illegal voting though it didn’t mentionTrumpwas the one making the allegations. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal agency thatoversees U.S. election security, also noted local election offices have detection measures that “make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots.”
Top election officials in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania andNevada— bothRepublican andDemocrat — have all said they see no widespread voting irregularities, no major instances of fraud or illegal activity.