Trump campaign files lawsuits and requests vote recounts

News outlets projected Joe Biden as the victor of the presidential race, but Donald Trump’s campaign continues to fight, with requests for vote recounts and lawsuits filed for several closely contested states. Photo illustration by SAM ANDRUS, Photo Editor

President-elect Joe Biden won the presidential race Nov. 7 after The Associated Press claimed him the victor in Pennsylvania, but that hasn’t stopped the sitting President Donald Trump’s campaign from pursuing lawsuits in several states on allegations of voter fraud.

During election week, the Trump campaign bombarded state and federal courts with lawsuits attempting to pause vote counting or disqualify a myriad of ballots. These lawsuits were primarily filed in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada – closely contested states where either a winner has not been called yet or that Biden won by a narrow margin. 

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, said at a Philadelphia news conference on Nov. 7 that new lawsuits are coming due to “Democratic Party hacks” in the city, which he claimed prevented Trump from being reelected. Lacking tangible evidence, Giuliani alleged that Philadelphia’s election administrators had privately submitted dozens of ballots, refused access to Republican monitors where votes were being counted and had accepted mail-in ballots that were casted in the names of dead people.

“Trump warned about mail-in fraud and he believes it happened,” said Denis Binder, a Chapman law professor. “I do think it’s possible, but not without proof.”

Along with the lawsuits, the Trump campaign is persisting with their request for a vote recount in Wisconsin, where unofficial totals reported by The Associated Press show him trailing behind Biden by slightly over 20,000 votes. Biden is leading by 0.7% of the state’s popular vote as of Nov. 8, within the one-point margin necessary for a campaign to request a recount in Wisconsin. Trump is doing the same in Georgia, where Biden is ahead by less than 10,000 votes. Georgia’s top election official has stated that there will be a recount within the next couple of days. Rules regarding recounts vary by state. 

“There's probably not enough ballots to overturn the election; the odds of that are very slim,” Binder said. “(Trump) went to bed believing he would get a victory in these big states, then the votes came in and he thinks he's being cheated.”

The lawsuits and recount requests came with little surprise to the American people. President Trump has repeatedly suggested he won’t commit to a peaceful transition of power if he lost the 2020 general election, claiming that a potential loss would be due to a rigged election. This isn’t the first instance Trump has refused to accept unfavorable results: a pattern has emerged since the 2016 presidential race, when he stated he would only accept the results if he won. 

“I think all the advisors around him will tell him it's over,” Binder said. “He will have trouble accepting it, but it'll be over. He may refuse to turn over power, but whether he’s there or not, there's going to be an inauguration and Joe Biden is going to have the keys to the White House.”

Binder told The Panther that, in his lifetime, he has never witnessed a president refuse to peacefully transfer power to the president-elect.

“I study a lot of history and I don’t know of anyone,” Binder said. “There's some that may not have been happy, but there's always a peaceful transition of power.”

The American people remain unaware of what will unfold in the coming months, prior to the January 2021 inauguration.