ATLANTA (AP) – While Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as the country’s 46th president on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters still believe that Biden was not legitimately elected after Trump continues to argue that the election was stolen.
There is no evidence of the widespread fraud that Trump and his allies alleged. Republican and Democratic election officials certified the election as valid. Courts rejected action after action, and a clear majority in Congress confirmed the final result, despite a tumultuous mob earlier this month that sought to stop the process.
So, who claimed what, precisely? What is the evidence that the 2020 election was valid and Biden is the duly elected president of the United States?
THE ‘SAFEST’ ELECTION IN US HISTORY
After a difficult primary season during the coronavirus pandemic, election officials were determined to ensure that voters could vote safely and accelerated operations to deal with a massive influx of absentee votes. The absent vote has been available for a long time in the United States, with some states limiting it to certain voters, and the process has safeguards so that any ineligible voter or voter who votes multiple times is caught and prosecuted.
In many places, electoral authorities have added boxes for voters concerned about widespread postal delays. Others offered to vote on the sidewalk and some states chose to send ballots to all registered voters. Although Trump and his allies claimed that these changes were designed to rig the election in favor of Democrats, Trump saw more people vote for him in 2020 than four years earlier and Republicans won seats in Congress.
One of the changes that attracted the most scrutiny was the expansion of the absent vote in Pennsylvania, but this was done before the pandemic and authorized in a law passed with bipartisan support through the legislature controlled by the state’s Republicans.
State and local election officials consider the November election one of the most relaxed in recent memory, with the vote spread over days and even weeks, instead of a crowd of people in polling stations on election day. Even Trump’s recently deceased attorney general, William Barr, said he saw no evidence of widespread fraud.
And the fact that so many people vote on paper ballots, which guarantees a record in the event of a dispute, has led to a coalition of government and electoral security officials, including representatives of the United States Department of Homeland Security cyber security agency. , issued a statement calling 2020 the “safest “election.
REVISED WORK, CERTIFIED RESULTS
After the poll was over, election officials counted the results and used various measures to check the totals, such as observing how many people registered in each constituency and how many ballots were issued to ensure they add up. For postal ballots, election workers revised the voter registration to ensure they were eligible to vote and many states compared voters’ signatures to those on file.
Any discrepancies were investigated and the results were presented to the local electoral boards and, eventually, to the state to certify the results as accurate. This happened across the country without controversy, except in some cases where Republicans raised questions. In these cases, the concerns were dismissed without merit and the elections certified.
In Georgia, Biden’s victory was verified three times: with an initial count, a second one conducted manually and then a recount. The state also conducted an audit of the electronic ballot boxes to ensure that registered votes were registered electronically and corresponded to paper records submitted by voters. A limited review of voter signatures found no evidence of widespread illegal voting.
And finally, Republican and Democratic governors approved the results, including Trump’s allies, Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp and Governor Doug Ducey from Arizona, who certified that Biden won his states.
LITIGATION FLOOD, FRAUD COMPLAINTS
Trump and his Republican Party supporters suffered losses after losses in the legal system, up to the U.S. Supreme Court, while seeking to overturn the will of voters in some states that Trump lost with unfounded allegations of widespread fraud. Their cases generated quick dismissals and forceful responses of judges, some of whom were nominated by Republicans or by Trump himself:
– US District Judge Timothy Batten, Georgia, appointed by President George W. Bush, dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the votes were rigged in favor of Biden, saying “they want this court to replace the two and a half trial millions of Georgia voters who voted for Joe Biden and I’m not willing to do that. ”
– State judge Stephanos Bibas, a former law professor named by Trump, wrote: “voters, not lawyers, choose the president. Ballots, not summaries, decide the elections, ”as his panel refused to grant a request to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results.
In about 60 cases brought by the Trump legal team and Republican allies, Trump won only a small victory in a fight over the deadline to provide proof of lost identification for certain missing ballots and ballots in the mail in Pennsylvania.
As his legal bids failed, Trump tried to get help from elected officials in key states. He summoned Michigan lawmakers to the White House in an unsuccessful attempt to overturn the vote count. He asked the governor of Georgia to call the state legislature to overturn the results and told the top Georgia election official to “find ”Enough votes to influence the state in your favor.
Amid all the demands, it is worth mentioning that they started and ended with the presidential dispute. There were no widespread requests to redo the entire election, which also included seats in Congress and the state legislature.
AFTER MOB, THE CONGRESS CONFIRMS
The constant noise of false allegations about widespread fraud came to the Capitol when Congress met to confirm Biden’s victory, with more than 100 Republican lawmakers supporting the objections.
The meeting to complete the counting of the Electoral College is usually a routine step. But the process became deadly as a crowd thousands of Trump supporters stormed the building. After the confusion was cleared up, lawmakers met again and confirmed the results before dawn the next day.
In a strong rebuke on Tuesday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that “the crowd was fed with lies ”By Trump and others. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people and tried to use fear and violence to prevent a specific process from a branch of the federal government,” said McConnell. He promised a “safe and successful” tenure for Biden.
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Izaguirre reported from Charleston, West Virginia. AP reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Boston.
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The Associated Press’ voting rights coverage is supported in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for this content.