• Every single election prior to this one has involved mail-in ballots and states have always taken longer than one day (Election Day) to count votes. What made this year different was the massive number of mail-in votes due to the pandemic, which some states, such as Pennsylvania, were not able to start counting until Election Day. Therefore, it took longer for the media to call these races. Notably, it was the Republican legislature in Pennsylvania that made the rule that mail-in ballots couldn’t begin to be counted until Election Day. Other states, like Florida, that were able to begin counting sooner were able to call their races sooner.

• The last point feeds into why Biden’s lead didn’t begin to appear until after Election Day. Because Trump encouraged his supporters not to vote by mail, most of them voted in person on Election Day. Therefore, most of the mail-in ballots came from Democrats. Because they couldn’t begin to be counted until Election Day in some states, Biden began to have a stronger lead in the days after.

• Interestingly, Trump didn’t declare fraud in any other states where votes were still being counted after Election Day, simply because those races had already been called. He also wanted votes to stop being counted in states that he was beginning to lose (like Pennsylvania), but to keep being counted in states that he thought he might win (like Arizona). Therefore, it’s obvious that his only motive for declaring election fraud was that he was beginning to lose. 

• All of the claims about dead people or foreigners voting have had no evidence so far. While there are videos circulating on social media claiming to show fraud, many, if not all, of these are falsified, such as one video supposedly showing ballots being stuffed in Flint, Michigan, when it was actually from Russia two years ago.

• The only reason that Republican legislators have sided with Trump on calling the election fraudulent is because they are afraid of upsetting him and losing the support of his base, especially since 73 million people voted for him. They are more concerned with staying in power than protecting our democracy.

Rachel Smith

Whittier