The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fraud claims aimed at keeping base loyal
Legal action won’t change outcome, aides acknowledge.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has promised legal action in the coming days as he refuses to concede his loss to Democrat 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 of framp for a loss he can’t quite grasp 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 that the legal fights would — 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.
There has been no election in decades in which such widespread fraud was
alleged. The closest was the 1960 election inwhich Democrat John F. Kennedy beat Republican Richard Nixon, and there were allegations that fraud helped Kennedy win.
Moments after the race was called for Biden, Trump attorney Rudy Giulia ni stood in front of a campaign banner taped over the garage door of a landscaping company in Philadelphia, wedged between a cremation center and an adult book store, with a handful of pollwatchers and declared they had been kept too far away to check for any inaccuracies.
“We have noway of knowing, because we’ve been deprived of the right to inspect ballots,” he said.
Partisan poll watchers are designated by a political party or campaign to report any concerns they may have. 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 killed more than 230,000 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 loath 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 given the same access, have not raised concerns. Giuliani called evidence of fraud circumstantial at the news conference. He said he would be filing suit in federal court, but the issue already has been before judges.
A federal judge in Philadelphia on Thursday night ordered the two sides to work out an agreement on the number of poll watchers and how close they could be to the counting. The judge also voiced concerns about the safety of poll workers during the pandemic if poll watchers were allowed to peer over their shoulders.
Voter fraud is extremely rare, and when it does happen, people are generally caught and prosecuted and it does not change the outcome of the election. Typically, it involves someone wanting to honor the wishes of a loved one who recently died and either knowingly or not commits a crime by filling out that ballot.
Trump campaign officials also have 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 of wrongly including some 21,000 supposedly dead residents on voter rolls.
The federal judge who has the case, John Jones, has said he was doubtful of the claims. He said the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which brought the claims, was asking the court to accept that there were dead people on voter rolls, and he asked for proof and questioned why they had waited until the “11th hour” to file suit.
Top elections officials in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada — both Republican and Democrat — have said they have seen no widespread voting irregularities, no major instances of fraud or illegal activity.