US election 2020: I’m not fighting for me but supporters says Donald Trump
Despite multiple blows, Donald Trump vows to continue his quest to overturn the result before the electoral college formally votes.
Donald Trump has claimed he is fighting the US election result for the 74 million Americans who voted for him as his legal campaign suffered major setbacks across four states.
The president’s increasingly unlikely quest to overturn Joe Biden’s victory suffered multiple blows Tuesday (AEDT) when the disputed states of Arizona and Wisconsin certified a win for Mr Biden.
The Republican Governor of another disputed state, Georgia, also pushed back against the president, saying he would not interfere in that state’s previous decision to certify its result in favour of the former Vice President.
This means that the six states in which Mr Trump disputed the results – Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania – have all officially certified a Biden victory during the past ten days.
Even, so the president vowed to continue his long-shot legal campaign to challenge the certified results of the November 3 poll before the December 14 deadline when the electoral college formally casts its votes.
“I’m not fighting for me, I’m fighting for the 74,000,000 people (not including the many Trump ballots that were ‘tossed’), a record for a sitting president who voted for me!’’ the president tweeted.
I’m not fighting for me, I’m fighting for the 74,000,000 million people (not including the many Trump ballots that were “tossedâ€), a record for a sitting President, who voted for me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020
Mr Trump also tweeted about the “total election corruption in Arizona” and attacked Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp for not supporting his claims of fraud in his state.
“Why won’t Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes?” Mr Trump tweeted. “It will be a ‘goldmine’ of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state.”
Why won’t Governor @BrianKempGA, the hapless Governor of Georgia, use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes. It will be a “goldmine†of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2020
Mr Trump is calling for matching signatures on mail-in ballots to the envelopes in which they were received, but election officials in Georgia say this is not possible because they were separated during counting.
Georgia has already had a recount of votes which confirmed that Mr Biden had won the traditionally Republican state.
But Mr Kemp, who until recently had been a strong Trump supporter, hit back at the president’s attacks.
“Georgia law prohibits the Governor from interfering in elections,” Mr Kemp’s spokesman Cody Hall said. “The Secretary of State, who is an elected Constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order.”
Wisconsin also certified its result on Tuesday after Republicans paid for a recount in two heavily Democrat counties. The recounted result increased Mr Biden’s initial lead of more than 20,000 votes by a further 84 votes.
“Today I carried out my duty to certify the November 3rd election,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said. “I want to thank our clerks, election administrators, and poll workers across our state for working tirelessly to ensure we had a safe, fair, and efficient election. Thank you for all your good work.”
Despite the certification, Mr Trump’s legal team said they would file new lawsuits this week to try to disqualify as many as 238,000 ballots in Wisconsin which they claim were illegally cast.
Arizona, also certified its results on Tuesday, saying Mr Biden won the state by just over 10,000 votes.
The result makes Mr Biden the first Democrat president to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996 and before that Harry Truman in 1948.
But Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward has indicated the state party will file a challenge to the results in the days ahead regardless of the decision to certify them.
In Pennsylvania, where the Trump team received two major legal setbacks last week, the last hope to overturn the state’s claim of a Biden victory lies in the US Supreme Court taking up a case based on Republican claims of fraud.
But even the president at the weekend cast doubt on this, saying ‘the problem is it’s hard to get into the Supreme Court.’
Republican leaders, including Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority leader Keven McCarthy have refused to acknowledge a Biden victory despite the overwhelming evidence of it.
The government agency that approves presidential transitions, the General Services Administration, has called a Biden victory.
Mr Biden and his team are now proceeding their preparations for taking office in January regardless of the protests by the president.
(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)
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