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Electoral process completely sound, refuting Trump's claims

Agencies|

12 Nov 2020, 12:39 PM IST

1/5

'Illegal' votes

The U.S. presidential election was not tainted by widespread voter fraud or irregularities in how ballots were counted, despite a huge effort by President Donald Trump to prove otherwise. In refusing to concede the election, Trump claims that he would have won were it not for 'illegal' votes counted in several states that he lost or where he is currently trailing.

But Trump and his allies haven't offered any proof, and their legal challenges have largely been rejected by the courts. Nonpartisan investigations of previous elections have found that voter fraud is exceedingly rare. State officials from both parties, as well as international observers, have also stated that the 2020 election went well.

Agencies

2/5

Voters this year

More than 150 million people voted in the presidential election. As of Wednesday, President-elect Joe Biden had received over 5 million more votes than Trump. Biden has 290 votes in the Electoral College to Trump's 217. Trump added three votes when he won Alaska on Wednesday. Of the states Trump has most targeted as allegedly tainted by fraud, Biden holds small but significant leads in all of them. The Democrat leads in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

AFP

3/5

Electoral proceedings

Several states successfully enacted voting measures during the coronavirus pandemic. The Democratic stronghold of California improved its mail-in balloting system, for example, and delivered as expected for Biden. But Trump easily won reliably Republican Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana, all states that also significantly expanded voting by mail this year.

Agencies

4/5

Basis for Trump contention?

The Trump campaign has filed more than a dozen lawsuits in at least five states. Late Tuesday, the campaign said it filed a new one in Michigan alleging, in part, that their poll watchers were harassed or turned away; the suit asked the secretary of state not to certify the election results. Included in the suit were affidavits from poll watchers who alleged they were kept too far away or that they were targets of intimidation.

The campaign has challenged a ruling by Pennsylvania's Supreme Court allowing election officials to accept mail-in ballots up to three days after the election as long as those ballots were postmarked by Election Day. And it has challenged the secretary of state over instructing counties that voters whose absentee ballots were rejected could cast a provisional ballot. Trump has won one victory so far: A state court ruled his campaign observers had to be allowed closer to the actual vote counting. That ruling had no impact on the outcome of the race. Four other campaign suits have been dismissed. Others are pending.

5/5

What are Trump's allies saying?

Trump's lawyers and campaign staff say that the election is not over and that they are investigating claims in several states, though they continue to lack any evidence of widespread fraud that affected the outcome of the race. Top Republicans have supported the president's efforts to fight the election results in court. All disputes over the counts in each state must be complete by Dec. 8. Members of the Electoral College vote on Dec. 14. The House and Senate hold a joint session on Jan. 6, 2021, to count the electoral votes in each state.