By all accounts Joe Biden has won the US presidency. It’s not official yet, but the math suggests he is
the president-elect. Donald Trump refuses to concede, vowing to litigate and sue his way to victory and take his case to the Supreme Court where his three appointed Justices will deliver him a win. This is Trump’s fantasy, as well as his supporters, and the fear of those who opposed him. Is this scenario possible or likely? Simply put, no–this is not Florida 2000 and Bush v Gore all over again. Let us explore Trump’s case.
Technically Joe Biden has not yet won the presidency or any state yet. The results in each state are not official yet. There is a period after elections in the US where final counts are made and any errors are corrected. This is normal. During this period it is not unusual for small adjustments in vote counts to change. Approximately two weeks after elections in each state a body called a canvassing board meets to certify the election results and eventually issue election certificates declaring winners. This is when someone is officially the winner. Up until this point candidates can make administrative challenges or recounts can occur. Normally, only after the results have been certified can one go to court.
There are several hard date deadlines coming soon. Under federal law all disputes regarding a state’s electoral votes need to be resolved by December 8. This is so that if there is a challenge to them in Congress there is a presumption of validity for them. This is the so-called safe harbor provision. Federal law requires the electors to cast their ballots on December 14. The Constitution requires Congress in a joint session on January 6, 2021, to certify the electoral vote count and her any challengers from members of Congress. Finally, the Constitution says that the current term for the president expires at noon on January 20, 2021 when the new president takes overs. Any litigation must respect these dates, with it likely that any suits will need to be resolved by the December 8, deadline.
As on November 9, 2020, Joe Biden potentially has 279 electoral votes, nine more than the 270 needed to win the presidency. This vote total includes Michigan (16), Nevada (6), Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin (10). It does not include Arizona (11) and Georgia (16). Biden is ahead in the latter two and likely to win both, pushing his total to 306 electoral votes.
For Trump to win he would need to then overturn 36 electoral votes, flipping at least three if not more states.
One way to do this is through a recount of votes. Perhaps in demanding a recount in several states he can change the election outcome. This is unlikely to succeed, especially in more than one state. Ballot counting is highly accurate in the US, with statewide elections barely changing totals by more than a few hundred votes. Biden’s margins of victory are sufficiently large enough in all these states that there is little chance they will change results.
The second alternative is the legal challenge route. Individuals cannot sue in court just because they are mad. They need to show a legal injury. For Trump, there are several dubious legal arguments.
One, Trump will argue widespread voter fraud. Trump has been arguing that such fraud exists for years but never has offered proof of it. He did this before the election this year with allegations that vote by mail was rift with fraud. He and his followers seem to insinuate that large numbers of dead, undocumented immigrants, or other persons vote. If he has evidence of that his legal team needs to prove this in court. So far lower courts have rejected claims of this and the evidence is overwhelming that there is no significant voter fraud of any type in America. This belief in such is a defining legend for many Republicans.
But even if such fraud does exist, the president must prove it exists and to such an extent that it affected the reliability and outcome of the election such that a new election is needed. Rarely do judges order such an election because it is impossible to rerun an election, and that would especially be the case with a presidential election where there are strict time limits in place. More likely, what Trump needs to show is that there was enough fraud that a large class of votes must be thrown out such that this number across several states will change the vote count. This is an evidence issue and votes are not thrown out based on mere speculation or assertion. In many cases, one needs to show vote by vote why there is fraud. Again, unlikely.
One argument being thrown out by Trump also is that votes received on or before election day which were cast by absentee ballot but not counted until after the election should not be counted. The claim is that they violate the Federal Uniform Election law which requires the election to take place on a specific day (November 3, this year), and that any ballots counted after that date violate that federal law. This argument will fail. States routinely count absentee ballots after election day. Nothing in the federal law prohibits this. Counting ballots received by election day are different from counting ballots received after election day and to which maybe the federal law applies, but Biden’s victory does not depend on these latter ballots.
Three, Trump has argued that his poll watchers or observers were denied access to viewing the ballot counting. Lower courts have rejected that and upheld laws saying they must keep their distance from counters and do not have a right to lean over their shoulders. This is to prevent intimidation. These laws will be upheld. But even if there is a violation here all that it will require is perhaps some recounting but it does not change the count.
Finally, Trump seems to claim some type of Bush v. Gore violation. Bush v. Gore in 2000 was a constitutional Equal Protection violation in one state that involved the procedures for how to ascertain voter intent. The case involved one state where the vote totals were only a few hundred apart. The Court’s decision to halt the recount in 2000 was that it might go past the safe harbor provision. It is hard to find a parallel Equal Protection violation here that would invoke Bush v Gore unless somehow one says that states are treating different classes of voters differently in ways that are constitutionally wrong. This is a hard argument to make, especially across several states. It would take a lot of legal maneuvering to get a case to the Supreme Court and it would take even more to do that to invalidate tens if not hundreds of thousands of votes across two or more states. From a legal perspective, the chances here are impossible.
Maybe the real goal as some contend is for Trump to delay the electoral college votes from taking place in multiple states, and then throwing the election Congress as the Constitution provides. Here is where Bush v. Gore may apply–the Supreme Court may simply do in litigation now as it did then to stop it before the December 8, safe harbor provision kicks in. Despite fantasies and fears by Republicans and Democrats, don’t count on congressional selection of Trump as president.
Overall, the president cannot litigate himself into a victory. The math and law are against him.
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