Trump lines up lawyers in readiness
PHILADELPHIA: President Donald Trump cast doubt on the integrity of the US election again yesterday, saying a vote count that stretched past Election Day would be a ‘‘terrible thing’’ and suggesting his lawyers might get involved.
With two days to go until the election and trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls, Trump raced through battleground states in a late hunt for support, while Biden implored attendees at two rallies in Pennsy lvania to vote.
Americans have rushed to vote early, already casting nearly 60 million mailin ballots that could take days or weeks to be counted in some states, meaning a winner might not be declared in the hours after polls close on Tuesday night (local time).
‘‘I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait for a long period of time after the election,’’ Trump told reporters before a rally in North Carolina. Some states, including Pennsylvania, do not start processing mailin votes until Election Day.
Trump has said repeatedly without evidence mailin votes were prone to fraud, although election experts said that was rare in US elections. Mail voting is a longstanding feature of American elections. About one in four ballots was cast that way in 2016.
Democrats have pushed mailin voting as a safe way to cast a ballot during the coronavirus pandemic, while Trump and Republicans are counting on a big inperson turnout.
‘‘As soon as the election is over — we’re going in with our lawyers,’’ Trump said yesterday, without further explanation.
Trump denied an Axios report he had told confidants he would declare victory on election night if it looked like he was ahead, even if the Electoral College outcome was unclear. But he said it was a ‘‘terrible thing’’ ballots would be counted after Election Day.
Asked about the report, Biden told reporters: ‘‘The president’s not going to steal this election.’’
Trump trails Biden in national opinion polls, but the race is seen as close in enough battleground states that Trump could still achieve the 270 votes needed to win in the Electoral College that determines the victor.
Trump held rallies in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia, and at midnight, a late one in Florida.
At OpaLocka airport in the Miami area, a ‘‘Fire Fauci’’ chant broke out when Trump defended his handling of coronavirus. Anthony Fauci, a highly respected member of his coronavirus task force, has been increasingly critical of Trump’s handling of the virus.
In response to the ‘‘Fire Fauci’’ chant, Trump said: ‘‘Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election.’’
Biden made several appearances in closely contested Pennsylvania, a state crucial to his quest for the White House.
‘‘There is nothing he can do to stop this nation from voting,’’ Biden told a drivein rally outside a Philadelphia church.
‘‘He knows that if you get to have your say, he doesn’t stand a chance,’’ Biden said.
Biden criticised Trump for encouraging his supporters after they harassed a Biden campaign bus in Texas. A caravan of vehicles bearing Trump campaign flags surrounded the bus carrying campaign staff on a highway on Saturday, forcing the campaign to cancel two events.
‘‘We’ve never had anything like this. At least we’ve never had a president who thinks it’s a good thing,’’ Biden said.
The FBI said yesterday it was investigating the Texas incident.
Biden is ahead 51% to 43% nationally in the latest Reuters/ Ipsos poll. The race remains a tossup in Florida, North Carolina and Arizona, while Trump trails by 7 percentage points in Pennsylvania and 10 points in Michigan and Wisconsin.
IN the Dunedin District Court yesterday, Roger Ralph Rooster of Maori Hill, a male bird (employed), was charged under Section 4 of the Nuisances Act 1894 with Disturbing the Peace and Tranquillity of the Demesne of her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria in Committing Unwarranted Mayhem by Creating Raucous and Riotous Disturbance in Crowing Loudly Before the Hour of Nine o’clock in the Forenoon.
There was some delay as defendant does not speak English, but an interpreter was found who was sufficiently fluent in Cluckish.
The defendant, when asked to confirm his identity, stated that he was a Bluff Orpington.
Judge Worthington StartlingGrope interjected with, ‘‘You are not from Southland, are you?’’
Being assured that Rooster was, in fact, a native of Dunedin, Judge StartlingGrope explained that he was an old friend of the Orpington family of Bluff and had the defendant been of that family he would have immediately withdrawn from the proceedings.
When asked how he would plead the defendant replied ‘‘Cock! Cock! Cock!’’
Interpreter: ‘‘He pleads ‘Not Guilty’.’’
The Bench: ‘‘Thank you. I gathered that.’’
Several witnesses then described the early morning crowing of the defendant.
Cindy Romper told the court she lived near the defendant’s property and as a shift worker often arrived home at about 4am but found sleep impossible because of the noisy rooster.
When asked by defence counsel Robert Wrightman what work she was engaged in, she replied that she was in the entertainment business. Counsel suggested that she was obviously well used to males making strange noises and was simply making a scapegoat of his client. Ms Romper denied this in language stronger that that usually heard in the District Court.
Pensioner Albert Lowburn described the effect of Rooster’s crowing on his marriage. ‘‘The rooster’s triumphant boasting of his sexual prowess has given me severe depression as my wife immediately compares my own performance with that of that blasted bird,’’ a tearful Mr Lowburn told the Court.
Defence counsel pointed out that recent research by Japanese academics had established that a rooster crows, not as a signal of virility, but simply to establish his territory and as a warning to potential rivals. ‘‘In fact,’’ said Mr Wrightman, ‘‘Bluff Orpingtons are nonaggressive and docile.’’ He noted that the breed is renowned for its defence of hens and some Orpingtons have given up their own lives in defending the flock.
‘‘No greater love hath a rooster than he who gives up his life for his hen,’’ a sombre Mr Wrightman told the court. ‘‘Let me add, sir, that a rooster will, quite rightly, crow loudly at any sudden noise which may indicate approaching danger.’’
The Crown suggested that such emotional claptrap was little more that ‘‘a cock and bull story’’ and not worthy of consideration by the eminent jurist before whom this case was a being heard.
Judge StartlingGrope blushed prettily, a rare event in Dunedin’s legal history, and asked the prosecutor to ‘‘tone it down, just a bit’’.
Other witnesses, including members of the legal, real estate and accounting professions, revealed that property prices near Roger Rooster’s property had not keep pace with the recent substantial rise in Dunedin house prices simply because proximity to a noisy rooster was seen by potential purchasers as akin to living next to a student flat in Castle St.
At this point a car being driven erratically in Lower Stuart St backfired loudly and the defendant, true to his breed, let fly with a strenuous ‘‘Cock A Doodle Doo’’ which woke several hardworking staff in the nearby Otago Daily Times office.
The outburst was a gift to the prosecution and the Crown at once announced that it rested its case.
In summing up, Judge StartlingGrope admitted that the incourt crowing indicated that the defendant was capable of committing the offence with which he had been charged.
‘‘On the other hand, I take cognisance of the point made by defence counsel that such behaviour is in the nature of a rooster. Should a behaviour dictated by Nature be punished? Do we shoot a dog because he wags his tail? Or condemn a politician because he tells untruths? Of course not. Such behaviour is instinctive and controlled by a Greater Power. It seems to me that the matter might best be resolved by some sort of bylaw by the Dunedin City Council. They have experience in dealing with noisy and aggressive males. As the obscure Act under which we are operating offers only death by neckwringing for the offence in question, I am reluctant to find the defendant guilty. Roger Rooster, you may leave this court without a stain on your character, but I must ask you to clean up the stain you’ve left in the dock before you go.’’