Biden and Trump are in virtual tie in 2 key states 1:15
(CNN) -
President Donald Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful presidential transition on Wednesday comes as Republicans across the country are taking concrete steps that threaten to undermine the integrity of the elections, particularly in key states of the countryside. battle.
Trump's comments on the transition were just the latest in which he has actively sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the elections.
But beyond Trump's rhetoric, his campaign and Republicans at the state and local levels are moving to make it harder for voters to cast their ballots, harder for states to count votes, and more likely to count. are challenged in court.
His particular focus is on voting by mail, which is expanding dramatically this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
ANALYSIS |
Trump's comments send a signal to his supporters on how to react if Biden wins the election
Those efforts, coupled with repeated unsubstantiated claims by Trump that the election will be rigged, threaten to corrode public confidence in the outcome.
And this could happen regardless of whether Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden is declared the winner.
Attempts in full battle for the Supreme Court
Republicans approve replacement of judge before 3:27 elections
The attempts also come amid a controversial fight for the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
This is a situation in which Trump could choose the person who decides his electoral fate.
“I spent 38 years as a Republican lawyer going to the precincts looking for evidence of fraud.
There are undoubtedly isolated cases, but nothing like widespread fraud that would somehow invalidate an election or make anyone doubt the peaceful transfer of power, ”said Ben Ginsberg, who helped litigate the 2000 elections on George's behalf. W. Bush, to CNN's John King on Thursday.
"So what is different in this is that a president of the United States goes straight to one of the pillars of democracy without the evidence that you must have to defend the case," he said.
The president's attacks on democracy
Trump has been falsely saying for months that the influx of mail-in ballots as a result of the covid-19 pandemic is conducive to fraud.
He suggested last week that the election results may never be determined precisely.
And he also suggested that the Supreme Court would determine the outcome of the elections (after his candidate is potentially located).
The president went even a step further on Wednesday when asked if he would agree to a peaceful transition of power.
He said, "Well, we're going to have to see what happens."
LEE: Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power after elections
Republicans on Capitol Hill rejected the idea that a peaceful transition will not occur.
However, several did accept the idea that the courts would have to decide the choice.
Here is an implicit suggestion that a dispute will arise that questions the results.
'We will accept the court's decision'
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, who faces her own fight for re-election while guiding Trump's candidate to the Supreme Court, said she would accept the election results of "the court's decision."
"We will accept the decision of the court, Republican and Democrat, I promise you as a Republican that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Joe Biden, I will accept that result," said Graham in an interview with "Fox and Friends."
"No matter who challenges the results to be elected, it is likely that ultimately the Supreme Court will hear that challenge and when it is pronounced, it is… it is the end of that," he said.
Republicans have pointed to Hillary Clinton's comments from August that Biden should under no circumstances grant the election if it is closed.
But Biden has said he will accept the results once all the votes are counted.
Sure, the full results.
Every vote counts, ”she told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
Both parties are fighting lawsuits across the country related to voting access.
And the Trump and Biden campaigns are furiously preparing contingency plans for a post-election legal fight.
Republicans say the legal positions they are taking to halt efforts to expand voting by mail are intended to safeguard existing election laws so they are not changed so close to Election Day.
Democrats argue that voting access should be expanded due to the pandemic.
And they say they are working against efforts to suppress the vote.
Question and investigate the vote
But in several states, Republicans are taking steps that could make election results more likely to be contested.
This both through lawsuits and efforts that could slow down the absentee vote count or question its legitimacy.
A state party official in Pennsylvania suggested that the state legislature could determine who won the election, rather than the state's popular vote, if the results of the vote took too long to be counted.
There are lawsuits across the country related to voting access problems.
These range from mailed ballots and mailboxes to how voters can fix absentee ballots that are missing information.
Those cases are the prelude to potential legal challenges after Election Day.
READ: ANALYSIS: These are the possible nightmare scenarios in the 2020 elections. One of them could come true
In North Carolina, two Republican members of the State Board of Elections abruptly resigned Wednesday due to an agreement reached with the Democratic state attorney general to allow voters to fix absentee ballots with missing information, suggesting that the agreement would undermine state absentee ballots.
So far, more than a million voters in North Carolina have requested mail-in ballots.
The state Republican Party called the deal a "flagrant abuse" after the resignations.
The Trump campaign praised the resignations, claiming that the Democratic demand that led to the agreement was part of efforts "to rig this election."
They ask for Barr intervention
North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Daniel Forest, a Republican, sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on Thursday asking the Justice Department to investigate the agreement between the board and the attorney general.
It's not the only case Republicans have turned to federal authorities and to Barr, who has made his own false claims about fraud and mail-in ballots.
Trump and Barr insist voting by mail lends itself to election fraud in the US 2:55
In Florida, the attorney general requested an FBI investigation into billionaire Michael Bloomberg's efforts to restore the voting rights of criminals by paying their fines.
And in Pennsylvania, the Justice Department announced Tuesday that it is investigating problems with a small number of mail-in ballots.
Prosecutor David Freed said the investigation found that nine "military votes were discarded."
In addition, in an unusual disclosure he said that "all nine votes were cast for the presidential candidate Donald Trump."
However, several hours later the press release was withdrawn and later republished.
The new version says that, in fact, only seven of the nine ballots had been cast in favor of Trump.
The other two were unknown.
A delayed and disputed count
Several states are currently mired in legislative struggles over whether to allow election officials to begin counting absentee ballots before Election Day.
In Michigan, the Republican-controlled legislature has not yet allowed local officials to process absentee ballots before Election Day.
The state Senate passed a bill that gives officials an extra day.
However, the legislation is stalled in the House of Representatives.
And Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Paul Pate, is seeking an emergency authority in order to have additional time to process ballots.
The state Legislative Council will meet Friday to consider the request, according to the
Quad-City Times
.
The problem with counting ballots by mail is both procedural and political.
Counting absent ballots is a more time-consuming process as each state has different rules for validating ballots.
This involves everything from ensuring that the signatures match until a witness signs the ballot.
Both campaigns are gearing up to have officials at the sites monitoring the count, which could further delay the process.
A political problem
Vote-by-mail applications on the rise in Illinois 3:21
This is a political problem because polls show that there are far more Democrats than Republicans planning to vote by mail.
One of the Democrats' nightmarish scenarios is that election night results show Trump ahead and that when his lead evaporates as mail-in votes are counted, the president claims it is a rigged election.
Trump has already been laying the groundwork for making this argument.
“Due to the massive new and unprecedented number of unsolicited ballots to be sent to 'voters', or wherever, this year, the outcome of the November 3 election WILL NEVER BE EXACTLY DETERMINED, which is what some they want, ”Trump tweeted earlier this month.
Trump has urged his followers on Twitter to be observers in the vote.
Experts warn that this could lead to intimidation or even conflict on Election Day.
Conservative and Republican groups at the local level are pushing for this effort by trying to register their members as observers as well.
In Pennsylvania, Facebook ads paid by local Republicans send supporters to a Trump campaign website.
There they can register to be election observers.
The role of state legislatures
Republicans are also looking to mobilize their base after the election.
A Republican source said the disputed post-election litigation could be bolstered by plans to stage pro-Trump rallies outside the courthouses where the lawsuits will unfold.
The apparatus to do so was already in place this summer in Nevada, where the Trump campaign sued over state legislation that mails ballots to all registered voters.
The possibility of a delayed and contested vote count goes beyond the mere public perception of a legitimate election.
It has even led some to consider that state legislatures appoint electors to the electoral college, rather than a state going with the winner of the popular vote, in the event of a disputed vote.
'Hypothetical questions'
Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas told
The Atlantic
that he had brought up this prospect to the Trump campaign.
"However, if the process is flawed and has significant flaws, our public may lose faith and trust" in the integrity of the election, Tabas said.
The Pennsylvania Republican Party said in a statement to CNN that The Atlantic article used the interview "to spin a preemptive, out-of-context farce that projects a conspiracy."
However, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff said the issue was being discussed because of the prospect of a delayed outcome.
These questions are completely hypothetical.
The only reason we are participating in this discussion is because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a decision last week that wreaked havoc on the Pennsylvania election by ensuring that we will not have election results on Election Night and by seriously questioning the integrity of the electoral process that we will undertake in a few weeks, "said spokesman Jason Gottesman in a statement.
Limit mailboxes and ballot shipping costs
In other states, Republicans have filed lawsuits and other efforts that, if successful, would make it harder for people to vote.
In Ohio, a Republican-controlled state budget board rejected a request by the secretary of state to reorganize existing funds to prepay the return postage on all absentee ballots.
Frank Larose, the secretary of state, is a Republican and members of his own party rejected his proposal.
The Trump campaign filed an unsuccessful lawsuit in Pennsylvania to prevent counties from installing additional voting boxes.
The goal is that they can be used to return absentee ballots.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected his argument, instead opening the way for local officials to add more mailboxes.
LOOK: 24% of respondents in the US do not trust vote by mail
In Nevada, the Trump campaign also filed a lawsuit.
The goal was to block a new state law that established universal mail voting for the 2020 general election. His lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge.
The decision to switch to an almost exclusively mail-order election was made by the Democratic-led legislature and the Democratic governor.
And in Florida, conservative judges on a federal appeals court ruled that the state can prohibit ex-offenders from voting if they have not paid court fees or fines that were part of their sentence.
The court upheld a law passed by the GOP-controlled legislature, which said voting rights cannot be restored until fines are paid.
The demands of the Democrats facing the elections
Democrats have also filed lawsuits across the country.
Their demands include efforts to make it easier to "fix" absentee ballots that are missing information, as in North Carolina.
They are also seeking an extension of the voting-by-mail deadlines for counting ballots postmarked on Election Day.
This even if election officials receive them later.
Those efforts could also become a source of legal disputes after Election Day.
Republicans could accuse Democrats of trying to circumvent election laws.
This could particularly happen if the key state margin between Trump and Biden is very thin and campaigns examine each ballot as it did in the 2000 Florida recount with ballots that were not completely punched.
LEE: Trump revives the case «Bush vs.
Gore 'in his crusade against postal voting
In that dispute, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush to stop the recount and Gore granted the choice.
Trump predicted that this year's presidential race will also end on the Supreme Court.
Although he gave no indication that he would make the same concession as Gore if he lost.
"This scam that the Democrats are doing - it's a scam - this scam will be before the Supreme Court of the United States," Trump said.
"And I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation, if you understand that."
CNN's Kristen Holmes, Pamela Brown, Sarah Westwood, Dianne Gallagher, Kelly Mena, and Pamela Kirkland contributed to this report.
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