On November 7, Jenna Ellis, a lawyer for Donald Trump, published an article in Fox News entitled “The outcome of the presidential election will be decided by the courts, and the winner is still undecided”, the following is a translation of the original article.
On Saturday, although many news organizations predicted that former Vice President Biden had won the presidential election and defeated President Trump, the media had no power to determine the outcome of the U.S. election. The Trump campaign, for which I serve as legal counsel, has gone to court and we are awaiting a ruling from the judiciary on our lawsuit.
In other words, as the late baseball great Yogi Berra said in 1973, referring to the National League title fight: “It ain’t over till it’s over. “).
We all want to know who will be president for the next four years. But all Americans should want accurate results first, regardless of who they support in the race.
Therefore, it is important for everyone to realize that until we have a formal, legally binding decision on who wins the 2020 presidential election, the legal proceedings of the Trump campaign must be resolved in court.
President Trump will continue to fight to ensure that the election results are fair and accurate. He is right to do so, because it is vital that we ensure that elections are free and fair.
As Americans, we should all be able to recognize that our rule of law governs our society and that our election process operates accurately. For President Trump, the Trump 2020 campaign, and the Republican National Committee, the rule of law, basic fairness, and accuracy of election results are the goal.
Our ongoing legal proceedings are not without precedent; we are simply trying to ensure fair and accurate election results. For example, during the 2000 presidential election, our nation experienced a legal challenge to the election results in Florida between then Texas Governor George W. Bush and then Vice President Al Gore.
Twenty years ago, some news organizations prematurely stated that Gore would become the next President of the United States by winning that very close election. Those news outlets have since retracted their predictions.
The Bush campaign’s legal action went all the way to the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court found that George W. Bush had won the election. Imagine how differently history would have gone if Bush had simply conceded defeat as soon as he heard on TV that Gore had won the election.
Of course, from a political standpoint, we would have preferred this year’s election to have resulted in the re-election of President Trump. That’s why we’ve been campaigning hard for the last four years right up to Election Day. A legal proceeding is not a campaign. From a legal standpoint, it doesn’t matter what the politics or the outcome is. What matters is that everyone follows the rules.
Just like in sports, fans and teams obviously want their team to win. But that victory must actually be won according to the rules of the game. If any cheating occurs, the result may be challenged or the result may be nullified altogether.
If the rules are broken, or one side cheats, it’s not a legitimate win. As it stands now, the Biden camp is celebrating prematurely before the outcome is finalized and legitimized.
President Trump and his legal team are working hard to ensure that the election results are accurate and follow the rules. Every American should agree with this and be able to have confidence in the integrity of the election.
Requiring election results to be legally accurate is not a partisan or political statement. It’s a legal requirement. In our constitutional republic, we the people get to choose our leaders based on the law and the Constitution, which dictates the results of our elections.
Here’s what we’re currently fighting for – keeping all additional legal options open as we’re still finding new reports of ballot irregularities – and why it’s important.
- every legitimate vote must be counted accurately.
The key word is “legitimate”. When members of the Biden camp assert that “every vote counts” and leave out the key word “legal”, they are inviting the possibility that illegal ballots will be included in the final count.
The law requires that any ballot that does not meet the legal criteria should not be counted, and any ballot that does meet the legal criteria should be counted. Illegal ballots include duplicate ballots (people who voted twice), rigged ballots, voided ballots, late ballots, nonresident ballots, fraudulent ballots, and other ballots that are legally required by law to be excluded from the count. In addition, improperly disqualified and excluded ballots, if they are legitimate ballots, should also be counted by law.
This is not a new concept that has magically appeared in this election. In every election, there are ballots that are challenged and thrown out as illegal. Challenging the ballots is not an attempt to manipulate the results of the election, it is a demand for accuracy of the election results.
2, the law allows both sides to observe the vote counting process to ensure honesty and transparency.
Inexplicably, Republican count observers in several states were denied the opportunity to effectively observe the vote count. Not only is this illegal, but it has also caused irreparable harm to both candidates in the outcome of elections in those states.
Had both parties not been present to observe the vote count, the results would have been invalidated. President Trump cannot prove that the vote counting process was in fact fair and accurate. Nor could Biden prove that the results were fair and accurate if he wanted to win in those precincts.
The law requires that both sides observe the vote counting process in order to ensure fairness. Even in the competitive vote counting process, where the outcome had far less impact than in a presidential election, one observer from each team was allowed into the counting room to inspect the ballots to ensure their accuracy.
Any precinct in which the Republican counting observers did not do a proper inspection throughout the process should be considered invalid. No one shall be able to prove the legality or accuracy of the results by any reasonable standard.
3: Legal action over unconstitutional procedures and incidents of irregularities and fraud must be resolved.
The Trump campaign has challenged unconstitutional changes to election laws in certain states. For example, in Pennsylvania, the state legislature failed to act to change the law. The governor of that state cannot unilaterally change the law, nor can the state Supreme Court.
The executive branch can only enforce the law, while the judicial branch can only interpret the law and properly apply the law and the Constitution to resolve legal actions.
Pennsylvania’s executive branch is trying to change the deadline for receiving ballots to allow for an additional three days, meaning that if a ballot is received on Friday at the latest, it can be counted. We at the Trump campaign believe that this action is unconstitutional. Whether you think it’s a good idea or not, whether it’s good for Trump or Biden or not. We think it’s illegal.
The election in Pennsylvania was also complicated and the outcome was likely irredeemably compromised because it was one of the states that refused to allow the Trump team to effectively observe the vote count. So, while the U.S. Supreme Court requires that late ballots be separated from those that arrived on time, no one can prove that ballot mixing or other fraud did not occur.
Moreover, once it is proven that this or any other type of systematic fraud occurred, the legal burden should shift to the state and the opposing candidate to prove that the fraud did not play a role in determining the outcome of the election. In other words, in this case, the Biden campaign would need to prove that the fraud was on a small enough scale that it did not change the final outcome.
Since the “glitches” in the counting system have shown that thousands of votes cast for Trump were cast for Biden, it is reasonable to require proof that in the precincts where these “glitches” occurred, the remaining ballots were in fact accurate.
- In states where the candidate had a narrow lead, a recount was required.
Recounts are common in close elections, and some recounts are even automatic. In some states it happened, the ballots were always there, the counting continued until Joe Biden overtook President Trump’s lead, and the states seemed to stop counting early on election night, all very suspicious.
In Georgia, for example, the count was so close that a recount was required and there were thousands of votes from military personnel still to be counted. In order to ensure fairness and accuracy, a recount was required at the end of the initial vote count in Georgia, whether President Trump or Joe Biden still had a slight lead.
This election is unique only because the Trump campaign has raised multiple legal questions about voting irregularities in multiple states. It would be irresponsible for us to turn a blind eye to all of these irregularities and to what we perceive to be illegalities.
Frankly, we don’t know if the results of this election can ultimately be accurate. But we do know that the issues we raise are legitimate and deserve careful scrutiny by the Court.
Most importantly: everyone should take with a grain of salt that the predictions were correct and that Joe Biden won the election. We would do well to remember Yogi Berra’s cautionary tale: “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And at this point, the presidential election battle is not over.
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