Is it Possible Trump could Overturn Election Results? (Michigan & more) Remember that Trump has lo

Is it Possible Trump could Overturn Election Results? (Michigan & more)

Remember that Trump has lost the popular vote by close to 6 million votes. But we choose our presidents via the electoral college. In almost all states, the winner of the popular vote in that state wins all of the votes for the electoral college. The way our constitution is written, there are technically ways for the courts or a state to overturn the will of the people via that states’ legislature. But none of it is going well for Trump. Here’s what happened recently:

In Arizona, a state judge dismissed a case brought by the Arizona Republican Party wanting to expand a hand audit of votes. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Democratic Party pointed out that the state had just finished a hand-audit recount of a sampling of ballots that found zero discrepancies and therefore a full recount would do nothing but delay the results. Biden won by over 10K votes.

In Georgia, a judge appointed by Trump threw out a case that was trying to stop the certification of the state’s results over improper procedures by election officials. The judge did not find evidence of irregularities. And Georgia just finished a full hand count. Biden won again. Georgia has certified the results. Biden won by over 12K votes.

In Pennsylvania, a judge there rejected an attempt to invalidate 2,177 absentee ballots. Trump was claiming that these ballots were "legally insufficient" because of technical issues with their envelopes or were missing a handwritten date or address. The judge said the case was about language, not voter fraud and that it would be wrong to disenfranchise those voters because of this. Biden won by almost 82 thousand votes.

In Michigan, Trump tried to pull off something pretty wild. First, as I mentioned earlier this week, 2 GOP members of the Wayne County elections board voted against certifying the results. Remember, Wayne county includes Detroit, a city where voters are primarily black and democrats. They eventually voted to certify but then tried to rescind that. It didn’t happen. So Trump tried a different tactic: he invited members of the Michigan State House and Senate to the White House to make an appeal in person. He was hoping that doing so could help stall the state’s certification which is set for Monday. And he wanted to convince them to get the Republican controlled legislature to overturn the popular vote, where Biden is ahead by at least 154,000 votes, and instead appoint pro-Trump electors to the electoral college. But that would also require the Governor to sign off on this. The governor is a democrat so that’s not happening. And the GOP member who met with Trump said afterwards that “We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election.”

You might be asking: if there’s no way for Trump to actually overturn the Michigan results, why try? Because it sows the seeds of doubt. It keeps his supporters angry and feeling like something wrong must have happened even though the only thing that happened was that Trump lost. It keeps him front and center in the news and gives him more power once he’s out of office. Perhaps most importantly for him, it keeps the possibility of a run in 2024 very real.