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/1 My thoughts on Trump's refusal to accept the election results. It's long. I decided to make this post after stewing in fears that Trump will undermine the results of the presidential election- through the courts, faithless electors, or a military coup. https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/1326277957103439872
/2 If you're out there stewing too, read this. It's a bit long, but hopefully worthwhile. These are the current state of affairs, and I've done my best to pull together the various threats and assess their current likelihood.
/3 I think four pillars of democracy stand in Trump's way, and one or more would have to fall: (1) federalism; (2) the civil service; (3) the courts; and (4) the military. We should be able to put the military to rest immediately -
/4 it has shown no appetite for supporting Trump's theatrics - there is no reason to suspect they will step in and subvert the political process, and their handling of Trump's attempts to use them in this way is evidence that they will not be used in this way.
/5 It's important to put these fears in perspective. Biden has won the popular vote, and currently he has won it by 4.6 million votes. Once all is said and done, he will have won enough states to give him three paths to an electoral college victory:
/6 (1) Pennsylvania; (2) Nevada and Arizona; and (3) Nevada and Georgia. This makes it really hard for Trump to use political/court mechanisms to overturn the results.
/7 This is where both federalism and the civil service protects the results of the election. Federalism because they would have to get three separate state legislatures to overturn their specific, statutory electoral and voting processes in order to overturn the results
/8 (and then the Courts to approve of changing the rules after the fact). It's also unlikely in these states because these congresspeople just watched the president lose their state and they will be up for re-election at some point.
/9 The civil service because you have individual, normal citizens working in branches of their respective governments in charge of making sure elections are run well, votes are counted, etc. These are normal, mostly non-partisan people, who just want to do their job and go home.
/10 (It's why Trump wanted to make the civil service political.) They're the ones in charge of counting, tabulating, etc. and it will be very hard to call into question results in multiple states tabulated in this manner.
/11 An overarching statement is important here: despite repeated calls for people to come forward with evidence of voter fraud, they have no evidence. Here is the state of play in these states:
•Nevada - Biden has clearly won this state.
•Nevada - Biden has clearly won this state.
/12 Arizona - the count continues, and Biden is still expected to carry that state. His lead may drop, but this is expected, and with each drop of ballots Trump has continually failed to carry them by the necessary margins.
/13 Georgia - Biden's lead continues to increase, there will likely be a recount, and Biden will win. Though Senators Loeffler and Perdue questioned the validity of the election and called on the REPUBLICAN secretary of state to resign, he forcefully pushed back and said:
/14 (1) the election was fair and there was no evidence of shenanigans that would call into question the results; (2) a recount would happen and be UNLIKELY to change the results; and (3) these two senators should spend their time preparing for their runoffs.
/15 It's really snarky and worth a read. Remember, this state is controlled by Republicans at almost every level, and they are maintaining faith in THEIR process. https://twitter.com/GaSecofState/status/1325917055611265024?s=20
/16 *Pennsylvania - Biden is on track to win this state by a good amount (currently at 40k, could increase to 100k). He is winning without the votes that Republicans want to contest (ballots mailed by election day but not received until after.)
/17 Fears have been swirling that the PA Republican state congress will send "faithless electors" in contradiction to the popular vote. The REPUBLICAN senate majority leader of PA has made this clear:
https://tinyurl.com/y6bnqk2x
https://tinyurl.com/y6bnqk2x
/18 The Trump campaign continues to spread misinformation about these states. For example, Mark Meadows tweeted that IF 127,000 ballots remained in AZ and IF Trump won them at the same pace he's winning the current ones, Trump COULD win.
/19 Problem is, there's only 60,000 votes left, and 18,000 of them are from a Democratic stronghold (these of course will probably be the last to be counted). All analysts are pretty confident in a Biden win there.
/20 In another instance, an AZ lawsuit touts a "large scale" problem in Maricopa county, where voters did not have the chance to correct ballots. It affected 180 ballots.
/21 So, it will take a MAJOR failure of these bulwarks in multiple states to give Trump a victory through getting those states to usurp the results of the election, and given the above evidence, these states are not buying it.
/22 Similarly, the courts are not offering a path to overturn Biden's victories in MULTIPLE states. A few things here: Trump's legal team appears to be in disarray. The lawsuits they are filing are riddled with errors and not supported by ANY evidence of fraud,
/23 especially not the kind of fraud that would invalidate the tens of thousands of votes in multiple states. Their legal effort is hampered because the head of that effort, David Bossie, tested positive for the coronavirus after attending the White House election viewing party.
/24 Of course, Mark Meadows attended that party, knew he had corona virus, and did not wear a mask. Obama's former solicitor general offers his thoughts, and sums it up by saying, these lawsuits are "cocoa crispies."
/25 He's doing a regular (daily?) summary of the lawsuits, and they are less than 5 minutes, so it's worth 5 minutes of your time:
https://tinyurl.com/yypd2pxm
https://tinyurl.com/yypd2pxm
/26 This is not to say that this is good or that the next two months will be easy. It's going to be scary, and Trump is unpredictable. His supporters are not accepting the election results, and Trump has laid the groundwork for a potential future despot.
/27 But it does appear as though at least some of these efforts are to line Trump's pockets and to stoke partisan outrage in advance of the senate run-off in Georgia, which will determine the balance of power in the senate.
/28 Heather Cox Richardson's letter today is worth reading. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-9-2020
/29 It appears that the bulwarks of democracy are holding and likely will hold. I am thankful that Americans showed up in SUCH numbers as to put Biden's victory beyond the reach of these attempts.
/30 If it had come down to a small margin of victory in just Pennsylvania, we would be in Bush v. Gore territory, and I would not be as confident.
/31 Recall, that in Bush v. Gore, it came down to a single state (Florida), and the margin between the two candidates was only 500 votes. This is not that. Again, there are three paths to victory, and those states will be decided by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of votes.
