Biden Lead Is Insurmountable Despite Trump’s Feckless Legal Challenges
GSA Obstruction of Biden Team Putting National Security at Risk During Pandemic
Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Rebuts GSA’s 2000 Comparison
Breaking with 60 years of precedent, Donald Trump’s handpicked GSA administrator is refusing to affirm the decisive results of the 2020 election, and facilitate the transition of the incoming Biden administration. The GSA is siding with Trump’s baseless, conspiratorial attempts to undercut the results of the election — ignoring the fact that Biden’s win is both clear cut and insurmountable.
Here are the reasons that the GSA’s delay has no merit, and is even dangerous at a time when the US is averaging 100,000 new infections a day, hospitalizations are at a three-month high and the country is in dire need of new leadership on the pandemic.
The GSA Is Breaking With Precedent and Refusing to Affirm Biden’s Victory Despite a Decisive Win
- The GSA Has Historically Ascertained A Winner Within Hours Of Media Projections Of An Apparent Victor. “GSA has been part of transition planning since the Presidential Transition Act was signed in 1963. Since then, the agency has identified the winner within hours or a day of media projections, and weeks before the results were made official by the electoral college.” [Washington Post, 11/8/20]
- It Has Been Three Days Since The Media Projected President-Elect Biden As The Winner, And Administrator Murphy Still Has Not Acted. “By law, Ms. Murphy, the head of the sprawling agency that keeps the federal government functioning, must formally recognize Mr. Biden as the incoming president for his transition to begin. It has been three days since news organizations projected that he was the winner of the election, and Ms. Murphy has still not acted.” [New York Times, 11/9/20]
The GSA Is Relying on Baseless Comparisons to Justify Its Obstruction of the Incoming Administration Even Though Biden’s Lead In Key States Dwarfs the 2000 Florida Margin Between Bush and Gore
- Unlike In 2000, When Only 537 Votes Divided Al Gore And George Bush In Florida, Biden Has Won A Decisive Electoral College Victory. Dave Marchik of the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition told PBS’ Judy Woodruff, “There have been peaceful transitions of power for 223 years. This is a very unusual transition. This is not like the year 2000, when one state, 200 — 537 votes determine the outcome of 270 electoral votes. Here, there’s a very, very wide margin. The outcome is clear, as President George W. Bush said, and the transition should be moved forward.” [PBS, 11/9/20]
- Biden Currently Leads Trump In Michigan, Wisconsin And Pennsylvania By A Combined 213,000 Votes And Leads In Georgia By Over 11,000 Votes. “Biden is now leading the popular vote by 4.3 million, larger than the population of 27 states. He’s also leading MI/WI/PA by 213,000 votes, 3x larger than Trump’s margin of victory in 2016. Biden is now winning in Georgia (+11,590 votes) by more than Trump won Michigan in 2016 (10,700 votes).” [Twitter, @AriBerman, 11/9/20]
- Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Lewis Argued That The 2000 Florida Election Dispute Was Nothing Like The 2020 Election Because Trump Would Have To Win Legal Challenges In Five Or Six States Instead Of One. “Lewis, now an Eminent Professor of Law and Letters at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, said he has been fielding plenty of queries in recent days and has done some reminiscing about the dramatic legal skirmishes of 2000. ‘It’s more than difficult for any one side to prevail in a manner that would impact the outcome because you’ve got – right now they’ve got five or six that any combination, you’d have to win the legal fight on all of the states…to be able to change the outcome of the election. That’s why Bush vs. Gore was so fact-specific and so interesting because we were dealing with one electoral vote difference and a margin of, like, 500 votes. So it made it sort of a unique circumstance to be dealing with.’” [The Ledger, 11/9/20]
Desperate Recounts and Meritless Legal Challenges Should Not Preclude the GSA from Declaring Biden the Winner
- New York Times: Besides 2000, “For The Past 60 Years, The Determination Of A Winner Was Made Within 24 Hours…Even As Legal Challenges And Recounts Continued For Weeks.” “But Mr. Biden’s aides said that the dispute in 2000 involved one state with only about 500 ballots separating the winner and loser, far less than in the current contest. In every other presidential race for the past 60 years, the determination of a winner was made within 24 hours, they said — even as legal challenges and recounts continued for weeks.” [New York Times, 11/9/20]
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- Recounts In 2004 And 2016 Were Completed After The GSA Has Certified The Electoral College Winner. “But historically, the ascertainment decision by the G.S.A. administrator has not waited for the outcomes of such challenges. In 2004, recounts in New Hampshire and Ohio were completed after the G.S.A. made a decision. And several states were decided by less than a single percentage point. In 2016, five recounts were filed after the G.S.A. announcement, and three were conducted in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.” [New York Times, 11/9/20]
- Recounts In 2004 And 2016 Were Completed After The GSA Has Certified The Electoral College Winner. “But historically, the ascertainment decision by the G.S.A. administrator has not waited for the outcomes of such challenges. In 2004, recounts in New Hampshire and Ohio were completed after the G.S.A. made a decision. And several states were decided by less than a single percentage point. In 2016, five recounts were filed after the G.S.A. announcement, and three were conducted in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.” [New York Times, 11/9/20]
- Recounts Rarely Reverse The Results Of An Election, And Don’t Yield Shifts As Large As Trump Needs To Overcome Biden’s Margin Of Victory. “Statewide recounts have historically only changed electoral margins by an average 430 votes, according to the nonpartisan election reform group FairVote. Joe Biden’s lead in several states is thin, but it’s not that thin. There have only been 31 recounts in the past 20 years, out of more than 5,700 statewide general elections, according to FairVote’s analysis. Three of those recounts overturned results, but they only shifted the final margin by 239-440 votes. The median margin shift after a recount is 0.015% of the total count. The largest margin shift ever seen in a statewide race was 0.11% — much smaller than what Trump would need in order to hang onto the White House.” [Axios, 11/6/20]
- While Recounts Historically Only Change Margins By Hundreds Of Votes, Biden Leads Trump In Key States By Thousands. According to the New York Times, Biden currently leads Trump by 150,000 votes in Michigan, 36,000 votes in Nevada, 45,000 votes in Pennsylvania, 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, and 12,000 votes in Georgia. Even Scott Walker, the former Republican Governor of Wisconsin, has called Biden’s margin in that state a “high hurdle” to overcome [New York Times, Accessed 11/10/20; NBC News, 11/6/20]
This Is a National Security Issue: The GSA Is Preventing Biden’s Team From Meeting With Key Officials, Preparing to Combat Virus and Other Threats
- The GSA Must Certify The Election For Biden To Meet With Top Officials, Like Those Combatting The Pandemic. “[Transition officials] get access to senior officials, both political appointees of the outgoing administration and career civil servants, who relay an agency’s ongoing priorities and projects, upcoming deadlines, problem areas and risks. The federal government is a $4.5 trillion operation, and while the Biden team is not new to government, the access is critical, experts said.” [Washington Post, 11/8/20]
- Biden Has Not Been Allowed To Meet With Officials From The Department Of Defense. “The Defense Department has had no contact with the Biden transition team and will not until the Government Services Administration greenlights the process, according to a Pentagon official. At present, the results of the election are still being disputed by President Trump and the GSA has not yet signed the paperwork necessary to begin the process to transition to President-elect Joe Biden’s new administration… The GSA order would officially approve millions of dollars to begin the transition process and allow government officials to begin coordinating with the Biden team.” [Inside Defense, 11/9/20]
- The 9/11 Commission Argued That The Bush Administration’s Delayed Transition In 2000 Impaired Their Ability To React To The Attacks. “David Marchick, who directs the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition, said there are important real-world implications for a delayed transition. Marchick points to the delay in the transition to the George W. Bush administration after the Supreme Court ruling. ‘That slowed the process of the Bush administration getting their national security team in place. Eight months later, we had 9/11,’ Marchick said. ‘When the 9/11 Commission did their autopsy on what went wrong, one of the things they pointed to was the slow pace of the Bush administration getting their national security team in place. And they said it impaired our ability to react.’” [NPR, 11/10/20]