President Donald Trump apparently thinks that merely declaring that he has won the 2020 Election is enough to get him a second term in the White House, even if he hasn’t secured the required 270 electoral votes.
It’s not enough that Trump will likely refuse to concede the election and may refuse to leave the presidency in a peaceful transition, he is reportedly planning to claim victory in front of his supporters before all the votes are counted and before the results can be officially called.
According to Axios:
“Trump has told confidants he’ll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he’s “ahead,” according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That’s even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania.
“Trump has privately talked through this scenario in some detail in the last few weeks, describing plans to walk up to a podium on election night and declare he has won.
“For this to happen, his allies expect he would need to either win or have commanding leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia.”
That could mean that Trump will declare victory early in the evening if he just so happens to be ahead and then will cry fraud every time a vote tally flips to former Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump insisted to reporters that he would not declare a premature victory, but he did attack the legitimacy of ballots that have not been counted by the end of the night.
“I think it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election,” Trump said. “I think it’s a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over. I think it’s terrible that we can’t know the results of an election the night of the election. We’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers.”
Indeed, so Trump is clearly going to challenge these votes in an effort to make sure they don’t count, which is an assault on democracy. He’s going to whine, cry, kick, and scream because he is that desperate to stay in power and out of prison.
The Supreme Court has already ruled that Pennsylvania and North Carolina can continue accepting absentee ballots after Election Day, which have exploded due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Make no mistake, Trump is going to try to steal the election, and he expects the high court to help him do it.
But merely declaring victory doesn’t mean he’s actually won. A candidate must reach 270 votes. Until then, Trump should keep his big mouth shut and let our election officials do their work.
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