Washington, D.C. – Former Vice-President Joe Biden is the presumptive president-elect, and Democrats could also control the legislative branch by winning both Senate run-offs January 5, but presidential election results are tentative pending GOP legal challenges to ballot eligibility and vote counting.
GOP leaders say they have proof needed in court, with affidavits of witnesses to corruption in multiple swing states whose votes could swing back to President Donald Trump.
Fraud charges and eyewitness testimonies fuel challenges in such swing states as Pennsylvania and Michigan. This legal phase could delay a formal outcome for weeks, even past December 14 when the Electoral College is to convene.
Vote recounts mandated by close-enough presidential results are going on in Wisconsin and Georgia. Recounts normally do not alter vote counts enough to swing outcomes. But it could occur with so many absentee ballots and legal challenges of them, if many are found invalid. Court challenges might force recounting of ballots in such states as Pennsylvania and Nevada.
U.S. Supreme Justice Samuel Alito ordered separation and separate counting (as required there) of absentee ballots received after 8 p.m. EST on Election Day in Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Supreme Court could decide some issues. It split 4-4 on a pre-election challenge. Since then, conservative Amy Coney Barrett was appointed and is a potential tie-breaking justice.
President Trump won a majority of votes cast on Election Day Tuesday, November 3. But since then, a steady stream—and at times monsoon—of absentee and other ballots have turned many pivotal states into Biden leads and apparent victories. Still, several are close enough that legal challenges or recounts could flip them back to Trump.
Biden was declared president-elect by major media before noon Saturday. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes put him past the needed 270 delegates. But that is among contested states.
Democrats control the U.S. House. If Biden’s win sticks, Democrats would sweep Congress by unseating Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in January 5 for a 50-50 de facto majority. Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris would break tie votes.
Ballot recounts could swing Senate elections to Perdue—who at 49.8% was near the 50% needed to avoid a runoff—and in Michigan to John James. James lost a bid to unseat Democrat senator Gary Peters by merely 1.5% and lodged a challenge over disputed ballots. “Wow! It looks like Michigan has now found the ballots necessary” for a comeback win, Trump sarcastically tweeted.
Fraud Claims
GOP leaders say they have legal proof such as sworn testimony (affidavits) of witnesses to various corrupt practices in several swing states. Trump charged Democrats are trying to “steal the election” with illegal votes and wants ballots better scrutinized.
A major issue is that Pennsylvania no longer required vote counters to check signatures of voter registration data with those on absentee ballots to ensure authenticity. The Keystone State’s Democrat-tilted supreme court enacted the late-in-game change, overriding state legislators.
Requiring this basic check is a prime example of possible election reform in some states. A bold step is federalized, standardized rules nationwide to equalize the process and thus each voter’s impact.
Classic fraudulent voting when those still vote in states they recently moved out of, as at least 3,062 voters are verified of doing in Nevada. “Dead votes” continue. A Pennsylvania woman testified her husband died August 1. Yet records show that a week later, someone registered in his name to vote. Some are reportedly caught on video filling out ballots for others.
In an Arizona county, a ballot counter testified her supervisor said to skip checking ballot signatures for authenticity and to ignore address discrepancies.
In Nevada, Democrats allegedly prevented installment of required surveillance video cameras to detect illegal deposits of multiple ballots into drop-off boxes.
Catching and proving vote counting fraud (adding, trashing ballots) is tougher when prevented from monitoring, as GOP lawsuits assert happened in Democrat-dominated Detroit and Philadelphia voting centers. In Detroit’s gigantic TCF Center (formerly Cobo Hall), a GOP observer was tossed out as protestors outside cheered, the other GOP monitor was kept too far to monitor, and then windows were covered to prevent television camera surveilling. Further, GOP National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said a Detroit election worker testified she and colleagues were urged to illegally backdate late-arriving mail-in ballots to November 2 or 3.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania directed to allow 60 observers of each party inside Philadelphia convention center and to allow closer access. Monitors had been kept further than the specified six feet, and even with binoculars monitors could not see vote counters’ hands well. But once barriers moved to six feet from ballot machines, those machines were moved to the back of the room to circumvent rules, according to Pam Bondi of the Trump campaign legal team.
There were reports of huge batches of allegedly Biden-only ballots slipping in in the wee hours after Election Day—a whopping 435,000 total arriving unchecked in two Pennsylvania counties and over 100,000 in Wisconsin.
In Antrim County, Michigan, a computer vote-tabulating software glitch has been blamed for errantly counting 6,000 ballots for Democrats instead of GOP candidates for which they were marked.