TORONTO -- U.S. President Donald Trump is refusing to accept his loss to president-elect Joe Biden and is instead floating baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and 鈥渋llegal鈥 votes despite a lack of proof.
All major news networks declared Biden the president-elect on Saturday after ballot-counting tallies in the remaining battleground states showed he had an insurmountable lead and would secure enough electoral college votes. But some Trump supporters insist that the election results remain undeclared and could eventually swing in the president鈥檚 favour, either through a series of legal challenges, statewide recounts or if yet-to-be-counted ballots, such as military ballots, tilt overwhelmingly in Trump鈥檚 favour.
The reality, political experts say, is that none of those possibilities is viable. Even if Trump somehow won every undeclared state -- Georgia, North Carolina, Alaska and, by some news organizations鈥 counts, Arizona -- he鈥檇 still be 11 electoral college votes shy of the 270 needed to win.
Trump鈥檚 campaign has filed a dozen lawsuits in at least five battleground states where he lost alleging a range of unsubstantiated claims, from voter fraud to problems with mail-in voting. Republican strategist Cory Crowley pointed out that Trump鈥檚 legal strategy relies on a highly improbable series of events.
鈥淥nly if he could get state supreme courts in four states -- most likely Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan -- to say that, for some reason, they鈥檙e going to throw out tens of thousands of votes,鈥 Crowley told CTVNews.ca in an interview Tuesday. 鈥淭hat would be the only way, and it would have to happen in all four of them.鈥
The chances of that happening, Crowley says, are 鈥渮ero.鈥
鈥淪everal of these states are run by Democrats anyway. What incentive do they have to help him?鈥
Trump鈥檚 campaign has vowed to push for recounts in Wisconsin, where Biden won by more than 20,000 votes, and Georgia, which the Associated Press hasn鈥檛 declared but Biden leads by more than 12,000 votes, or 0.25 per cent. Georgia does not do automatic recounts, but a candidate can request one if the margin is less than 0.5 per cent.
Recounts almost always change the final vote count, but only by a very small number. For instance, in 2016, a recount in Wisconsin changed the final results by 131 votes in Trump鈥檚 favour, accounting for .00004 per cent of the final tally.
鈥淩ecounts rarely change the results,鈥 Crowley said. 鈥淭ypically a big swing is a couple hundred.鈥
WHY ARE VOTES STILL BEING COUNTED?
Votes are still being counted across the U.S., and states have until Dec. 8 to settle any outstanding disputes. After that, members of the electoral college meet on Dec. 14 to formally cast their votes, which will officially declare the winner.
In any given U.S. election it can take weeks for states to finish tabulating ballots. This year, the unprecedented surge in mail-in voting has meant that the process is taking even longer. Several battleground states, including Pennsylvania, weren鈥檛 allowed to open mail-in ballots until election day.
Wayne Petrozzi, a professor emeritus of politics from Ryerson University, said the added labour of removing mail-in ballots from envelopes, then removing them from a second secrecy envelope, and then checking the ballot by hand is painstaking work.
鈥淵ou had some counties where they had two staff. That was it. And they had to follow meticulous protocols,鈥 Petrozzi told CTVNews.ca on Tuesday.
The Associated Press, which called the election for Biden after five days of ballot counting, said the surge in mail-in voting is to blame for the slower-than-normal count.
鈥淭he election, in many ways a referendum on Trump鈥檚 poor management of the virus, led to widespread use of mail voting for the first time in many states,鈥 of how it called the election.
In some of the more competitive states, such as Georgia, Trump鈥檚 supporters remain optimistic that an influx of military ballots could provide a sudden, unexpected boost to lift Trump over Biden.
The reason news organizations felt comfortable projecting victory for Biden was because he was ahead by such a margin that these outstanding votes, including military ballots, simply wouldn鈥檛 be enough to close the gap. Data analysts could also look at where in each batch of outstanding votes was coming from to better understand how the missing votes might lean, based on voter trends.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not corruption. It鈥檚 historical data,鈥 Petrozzi said.
COULD THE U.S. SUPREME COURT INTERVENE?
Weeks before the election, Trump pushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court despite outcry from Democrats who called the 11th-hour appointment unfair.
Some Democrats have raised concerns that Trump could harness the highest court in the land, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, to somehow throw out ballots for Biden and hand Trump a second term.
Both Crowley and Petrozzi both agree that possibility is negligible.
"You would never see the Supreme Court step in and say we鈥檙e going to pick one of the two of you,鈥 Crowley said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just not possible. They might be asked some legal questions potentially, but even then, those will be very specific as to whether certain ballots will count. But overall, elections in the U.S. are almost entirely governed at the state level, so the Supreme Court has very little jurisdiction anyway.鈥
For a case to make it the Supreme Court, it would need to be referred by one of the lower-level courts.
鈥淭here is nothing that suggests any appeal in any of the states mentioned could end up requiring a referral to the Supreme Court. So Amy Coney Barrett may not be of any help to him in this area,鈥 Petrozzi said.
WILL TRUMP CONCEDE?
Trump has not conceded the election and has reasserted in a series of tweets that he actually won, alleging 鈥渂allot corruption鈥 and
Trump has pushed for what he called 鈥渋llegal votes鈥 to be cast aside, insisting that he would鈥檝e won the election if only 鈥渓egal votes鈥 were counted. Among those 鈥渋llegal鈥 votes Trump alleges are mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania post-marked by Nov. 3 but received after election day. The state allows mail-in votes cast by election day to be received up until Nov. 6.
In 2016, Trump similarly said he would鈥檝e won the popular vote over Hillary Clinton had it not been for millions of 鈥渋llegal votes.鈥 A commission he put forward later found no such evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Trump also alleged that people cast extra votes in battleground states Michigan and Pennsylvania using the identities of dead people. there is no evidence of this happening, and experts say allegations of dead voters come up regularly due to issues such as human error, problems with software or voter confidentiality issues.
Regardless, Trump鈥檚 attacks have received support from top Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who said Trump is 鈥100 per cent within his rights鈥 to challenge the election results, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said there will be a smooth transition 鈥渢o a second Trump administration鈥 in 2021.
Crowley, who works as a Republican strategist, said he believes Trump will eventually throw in the towel.
鈥淚 think eventually he鈥檒l have no choice and it鈥檒l be very embarrassing for him if he loses at the electoral college and just gets tossed out on his ear. At some point, you want to go out on your own terms,鈥 he said.
But Petrozzi doubts that Trump will ever accept defeat.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 see it happening. I think it鈥檚 quite likely the processes will grind out to an untimely end. No ray-of-sun-in-the-dawn-of-a-new-morning kind of stuff. That鈥檚 for TV,鈥 he said.
鈥淚t鈥檒l grind to an end, the electoral college votes will get cast, and that鈥檒l be it.鈥
With files from The Associated Press
