*Information contained within this article is accurate as of 11/12/2020*
The 2020 Presidential election saw a race which culminated in a multi-day standoff as Americans awaited the final electoral college numbers that would determine who the next President of the United States would be. The ensuing fallout, which has been comprised of a misinformation campaign, voting conspiracy theories and a president who has yet to concede a lost election, has produced an outcome that constitutes an attack on United States democracy.
The Covid-19 pandemic allowed Americans across the United States to vote early or submit an absentee ballot prior to the general election’s Nov. 3 date. In fact, thanks to the accommodations states made as a result of the pandemic, over 100 million Americans voted prior to Nov. 3, constituting about three-quarters of the votes cast in 2016.
Recently, many media outlets have reported a Joe Biden electoral college victory. World leaders have begun acknowledging Biden as the next President of the United States as well. This comes as President Donald Trump’s team has continuously made attacks against the results, claiming that fraud has played a role in his electoral demise and has taken to courts and Twitter to challenge the veracity of the results. (For instance this Tweet, which incorrectly states that the Trump campaign did not have poll watchers in Michigan or Pennsylvania.)
As an article in The New York Times notes, the plethora of media outlets that have reported a Biden victory, “have not anointed Mr. Biden the winner of the presidential election, but have just done the math: The former vice president has won enough states by enough votes that Mr. Trump cannot overcome those deficits through legal challenges or recounts.” This aspect of the election in the key states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia is key to understanding the surrounding outrage that is being purported by strong supporters of Trump, whether the supporters are part of his voting base or politicians. For instance, at the time of this writing, only four of the 53 current Republican Senators have acknowledged Biden as the winner of the election and Trump has yet to concede the election, instead pursuing numerous court cases alleging some sort of wrongdoing in the battleground states.
These cases have challenged a variety of issues that have not garnered any significant differences in the election results. In much of the cases, the Republicans have “not provide[d] evidence to back up their assertions — just speculation, rumors or hearsay.” One case saw a Trump victory in Pennsylvania where poll observers were allowed to move closer to the election counters but still this does not affect the results. Also in Pennsylvania, United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ordered absentee ballots that arrived after Election Day but before Friday the 6th to be separated from the other ballots which still constitute a small percentage of the vote.
Perhaps encapsulating the degree of outrage witnessed during this affair was Trump’s criticism of Fox News, significant due to Fox’s unrelenting support for Trump throughout his presidency, after they called Arizona for Biden, something which many media outlets still have yet to do. Upon hearing this, the Trump campaign went on a crusade, contacting Fox directly and holding a press conference in which he stated, “this is a fraud on the American public” and then prematurely and inaccurately claimed that he won the election. Again, Trump took to Twitter to voice his disdain for Fox News and has continued to do so.
In fact, Trump and his supporters have found a new safe haven in Newsmax, which does not recognize Biden as the election’s winner, and who “buoyed Trump supporters who were defiant about the president’s loss, and led Mr. Trump and his allies to embrace the outlet as a friendly venue.” Newsmax is yet another medium that asserts these baseless voter-fraud allegations.
Despite these allegations, there have been zero substantiated accounts of voter fraud. The New York Times contacted election officials from across the United States, who indicated that there was no evidence of voter fraud. Moreover, a group of election officials stated that this year’s election “‘was the most secure in American history’ and that ‘there is no evidence’ any voting systems were compromised.”
Yet, even still, “some Republicans have even turned to lashing members of their own party who, in their eyes, did not show sufficient dedication to rooting out fraud.” In Georgia, for example, Republicans have called for Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to resign for his insistence that Biden’s lead in the state is legitimate.
Consider too that Republican voters were determined to be more likely to vote on election day compared to their Democratic counterparts, who were predominantly more likely to vote early through the mail, and what is left are the remnants of a perfect scapegoat for conspiracy laden tirades by the sitting president and his loyalists. Contrast this election to prior ones, where the race was essentially called on Election Day, and this easily adds fuel to an already flammable atmosphere created by misinformation. The ability to accept the results of an election and trust the election procedure regardless of the outcome is the most important aspect to a democracy. Without this trust in the electoral process, democracy is significantly undermined since the leader cannot claim legitimacy behind their position. As The New York Times writer Jesse Wegman said, “that attitude is fatal to a democracy, the survival of which depends, above all, on the loser accepting the results.”
The Republicans who are holding out must consider what they say to the public. Making baseless claims of election fraud is not only dangerous to democracy, but also wholly undermines it in the United States. The 2020 election signifies a substantial threat to American democracy, and what we decide to do next will determine what the future holds for us. Particularly, rejecting and disproving the rhetoric espoused by those who continue to blame Trump’s loss on lies will be the solution to protecting democracy.