Opinion: The Electoral Fraud Monster, how Something Fictional Became so ‘Real’

So, Joe Biden has won the 2020 US presidential Election.

This almost isn’t a controversial statement anymore. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that 80% of the American public recognise this.

President Trump could have called for recounts in all of the hotly-contested swing states where leads were just tenths of a percent, but he only did that in Georgia, and it is unlikely to change the result.

All the projections are clear and yet the debate on who won the election still isn’t over, as one argument still has yet to be settled; the allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Joe Biden's campaigning finally paid off. Photo taken by Matt Smith/Shutterstock

These allegations are baseless. Any evidence of a huge failure in the system to catch illegal voters has been overturned or disproven as courts across the country have thrown out lawsuit after lawsuit.

When one judge heard from a Trump lawyer that there were a “nonzero” number of Republicans watching the ballots being counted in one state, the judge asked “what’s your problem?” And had the case dismissed.

The suit had alleged that there were no Republicans present to watch the counting.

There is, however, one court still willing to entertain the idea; the court of public opinion.

Over the last two weeks, the rallies outside of the polling stations have been all over the news. Despite these people all supporting Trump, there is no unified message.

Chants of “count the votes” may come from one group of supporters in Arizona but in Michigan supporters of the same person are chanting “stop the count.” Both protests took place in key swing states which were vital for Donald Trump to win and they were both in places where Democrat votes were slowly catching up and surpassing the Republicans.

Election Officials have said they've seen nothing. Taken by Brandi Lyon/Shutterstock

So, how have these accusations gained so much legitimacy? How has it divided Trump supporters, and how could the Biden administration begin to heal this wound of distrust these people feel?

To help me answer these questions, I talked with Dr Slaven, a lecturer in International Politics and former aide to the governor of Arizona from 2007 to 2009.

Taken from staff.lincoln.ac.uk

To Trump’s base, allegations of voter fraud and a “rigged election” are nothing new. The President was making these same claims four years ago in his first presidential campaign. Back then, he claimed that it was the media who were rigging this election against him. A month before the election, he said that all the outlets were supporters for the democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and that they were publishing lies in order to help her get elected.

Whitehouse.gov

Former President, Donald Trump said: “The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president . . . but we’re going to stop it, we’re not going to back down.”

These claims of a rigged election didn’t start with Trump. In the election of 2008, John McCain claimed that certain community organising groups were “on the verge of perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy”.

Donald Trump was merely the right sort of fuel to allow accusations to burn brighter than ever before.

Dr Slaven said: "It didn’t begin with Trump. Republicans for the past couple of decades, have been saying that there has been significant voter fraud . . . The difference is the extent to which Trump was alleging it. In 2016, he was saying there’s a huge about of fraud and of course that’s an election that he won. It’s been the trope on the right for a while and now what we’re seeing is an escalation on a new level.”

He made these claims in mid-October, less than a month before election day but it was another claim to add to the anti-establishment rhetoric Trump had grown his support from.

Trump’s messiah-like status was a huge factor for his winning campaign in 2016. It didn’t matter if his claims were unsubstantiated because Trump was the underdog and he 'spoke for the people'.

Traditional Republicans like Ted Cruz and Chris Christie had been very critical of the Republican nominee but once he’d won the presidency, they had no choice but to fall in line or be seen as an ally to the media or the Democrats who wanted to thwart the 'change he was about to bring.'

Image taken by Lev Radin/Shutterstock

His main targets were the media and the establishment, and whilst the media is still his target, it’s harder to blame the establishment when you are the establishment.

It made sense, then that if Trump was to sow doubt in the election again, he’d need to put more emphasis on different target and it was mail-in ballots that his sights fell onto.

These accusations about mail-in ballots fell so easily into his coronavirus narrative. He believed that the democrats didn't want you to go out, even though it was safe enough to do so, and instead, rely on a way of voting that you are not familiar with, leading to election fraud.

Whilst methods of non-traditional voting were on an upward trend in the country, mail-in ballots were still a minority of votes cast and an easy target for misinformation towards those who voted more traditionally.

There were, however, two key differences:

The first is that he is the President of the United States. Making claims about fraud as an underdog candidate is one thing, but when you’re the most powerful man in the world, you can do something about it.

Between the confiscation of mail boxes and the lack of funding the administration is giving to the Post Office, mail-in voting has been made more difficult to tackle the fraud that even the FBI director has admitted there is no evidence for.

FBI Director Christopher Wray contradicts the President's claims. Image from The Independent

On the 24th September, Trump did not commit to a peaceful transfer of power. The reason for this was unclear, with the President only claiming to “see what happens” afterward.

Sure enough, he is now refusing to concede the election. This is the second big change.

Before, Trump had no power over that process because he was just a candidate but now he does. Every losing presidential candidate in history has conceded after the result of their elections but Trump once again is deciding to buck the trend in a sinister way.

Now, he’s threatening to interrupt the norms of American democracy as the 'most powerful man on the planet.' It seems like the underdog metaphor was fairly apt, because now we’re seeing the extremes to which he is going when backed into a corner.

We’ve all seen rhetoric now, and it contains two different ideas; that the election wasn’t fair and that he didn’t lose. This is dangerous because he’s associating two ideas that fundamentally aren’t linked.

An election can be fair and he can lose, but by associating the terms, he can convince those who support him that their fight for a fair election ends with him winning without them realising how authoritarian that logic really is.

That’s how two groups supporting the same man can demand polar opposite things. So, what can the Biden administration do to help Americans who believe in these claims?

Dr Slaven believes that Biden would be foolish to think that everything could just be cooperative leading to civility.

Dr Slaven said: “Joe Biden is relying on Republicans to snap out of it. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I do think there are some Republicans in the Senate who will play ball with Democrats on some things but Republicans aren’t interested in bipartisanship. It’s unpopular with the base because they’re convinced the Democrats aren’t legitimate. In the eyes of their base voters, they don’t want Republicans to give Democrats the time of day."

I fear that Biden’s approach towards the ‘healing’ process will just be to forget that almost 73 million people voted for Donald Trump and to try and pretend that things are now back to normal under his leadership.

It’s on Republicans now to abandon these ideas. That doesn’t involve sacrificing their party’s policies and views, it’s just about moving the debate back to reality. Until then, Biden can try to work for the Trump voter and hope that he doesn’t face the same challenges as Obama did…

But I suppose it isn’t just Trump praying for miracles now.