President Trump declined to commit last week to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the presidential election.
“We’re going to have to see what happens, Trump said when asked the question directly. “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful – there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.”
This should send chills down the back of anyone who believes in democracy in the United States. Just weeks before the election, Trump is raising the specter of a non-peaceful transfer. In other words, by violence.
Democrats immediately slammed Trump’s comments and even some Republicans expressed outrage.
“Fundamental to a democracy is the peaceful transition of power; without that there is Belarus. Any suggestion that a president might not respect this Constitutional guarantee is both unthinkable and unacceptable,” said Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a frequent critic of Trump and the party’s standard-bearer in 2012.
“The peaceful transfer of power is enshrined in our Constitution and fundamental to the survival of our republic,” said Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican. “America’s leaders swear an oath of the Constitution. We will uphold that oath.”
Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that there was no question that “all the people who had sworn to support the Constitution would assure that there would be a peaceful transition of power, including the president.”
We’d be much likelier to take McDonnell at his word if he hadn’t just committed to begin confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett just 40-some days before the election after denying President Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland nine months before the election four years ago.
McConnell cited a new principle at the time – that no Supreme Court justice should be selected during an election year.
And by now most Americans do not believe Trump has any other principle than doing what’s good for Trump.
So we should take Trump’s threat seriously and what it means not only for the race for president but for every race on the ballot – Nassau County included.
That begins with mailed-in ballots – a means of voting that goes back to the early days of the republic but is expected to increase exponentially during these days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump, who is trailing badly in both national and battleground state polls, has launched a deluge of misinformation about mail-in ballots, calling them “dangerous,” “unconstitutional,” “a scam” and “rife with fraud.” All of which are untrue.
There have been numerous independent studies that have found voter fraud extremely rare in all forms, including mail-in voting.
But by making these claims, Trump, who along with his family regularly votes by mail, lays the groundwork for possibly not accepting the voting results, halting the election before all the ballots are counted or both.
Keep in mind that any ballots not counted will include not only a voter’s choice for president but for any other campaign on the ballot. In New York, that would include races, for Congress, the state Senate and the state Assembly.
Trump obviously doesn’t think he can win the election if everyone’s votes are counted – especially those that are mailed in.
In normal times, mail-in ballots would not favor one party over the other. But these are not normal times.
Trump’s systematic predictions of fraud, combined with his downplaying the threat posed by the coronavirus, have had a powerful effect on Republican voting intentions, according to a terrifying piece on the U.S. election system that appears in the Atlantic Magazine authored by Barton Gellman.
“In Georgia, for example, a Monmouth University poll in late July found that 60 percent of Democrats but only 28 percent of Republicans were likely to vote by mail,” Gellman writes. “In the battleground states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina, hundreds of thousands more Democrats than Republicans have requested mail-in ballots.
This goes a long way in explaining Trump’s claim that by eliminating write-in ballots he would win re-election.
Four years ago, Hillary Clinton was trailing Trump by 1 million votes when the polls closed and ended up getting nearly 3 million more votes than Trump when the mail-in ballots were counted. Only to lose in the Electoral College.
Gellman speculates that come election eve, with a much higher percentage of Republicans voting in-person than by mail, Trump could be leading and declare victory.
Or if he falls behind as the mail-in ballots are counted, Trump could claim that the election was rigged. He already contended in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention that the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged.
Trump has already argued for a quick confirmation of Barrett to the Supreme Court to avoid a tie if the election results end up there. One doesn’t need to imagine too hard what would happen in this country if Barrett is the deciding vote in a decision that gives Trump the election.
There are also scenarios in which the vote is stopped and neither Biden nor Trump has amassed 270 electoral votes in which case the House of Representatives would decide.
This would seem to favor Biden, but the rules actually favor Republicans since each state is counted by delegation – not each representative. Republicans currently hold a 26-24 edge in states with the most representatives.
This scenario grows more likely the longer the count of mail-in ballots continues.
Now think about how the decision to replace the postmaster general with a Republican donor has slowed the delivery of the mail by eliminating high-speed sorting machines and personnel changes.
In still another scenario, a state Legislature could reject electors selected for the Electoral College, normally based on the winners of the state’s popular vote, with people of their own choosing. Discussions along these lines have been held in Pennsylvania with the Trump campaign.
There are many other scenarios where the country’s porous election laws could be used by a candidate who refuses to concede.
What to do?
We should start by asking every candidate running for office – whether Congress, state Assembly or state Senate – where they stand on who they support for president and how votes should be counted. These are fair questions as the election could very well end up being a decision between the country remaining a democracy or not.
If you are a voter, vote.
Even though the Electoral College determines the winner and New York’s electoral votes are pretty much guaranteed for former Vice President Joe Biden, a large enough difference in the popular vote could give a Supreme Court justice pause in making a decision that would thwart the will of the majority.
If you vote, try to vote in person if you can and vote early.
More than half a million postal votes were rejected in this year’s primaries. If you are at relatively low risk for COVID-19, volunteer to work at the polls.
New York has established eight early days of voting. There are 15 sites in Nassau County set aside for early voting.
If Biden were to have the lead on election eve, it would greatly discourage challenges later.
And, if all else fails, be prepared to have your voice heard in demanding that all votes cast be counted.
