Georgia and Michigan Deliver Blows to Trump’s
Efforts to Undo the Election
Joseph R. Biden Jr. was certified as the winner in
Georgia, and Michigan Republicans said they had no information that would
change the tally in a state Mr. Biden also won.
By Richard
Fausset, Nick Corasaniti and Maggie Haberman
Nov. 20,
2020
ATLANTA —
President Trump’s attempt to undo the election results was undercut twice by
fellow Republicans on Friday, as Georgia became the first contested state to
certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory and Michigan lawmakers — after meeting
with the president — said they would not intervene in their state’s election
certification process.
After
steady complaints by Mr. Trump about the Georgia vote count and a methodical
hand recount, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, bluntly
declared on Friday, “I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie,” and made
official the final tally showing Mr. Biden had defeated Mr. Trump by 12,670
votes, out of roughly five million cast. Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican,
tersely stated that he would sign the certification.
Hours
later, a delegation of seven Michigan Republicans, who had met with Mr. Trump
at the White House at his request, said they had no information “that would
change the outcome of the election in Michigan.” Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump in
the state by nearly three percentage points.
“We will
follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors,
just as we have said throughout this election,” the state’s top two Republican
leaders said in a statement issued by the State Legislature.
“The
candidates who win the most votes win elections and Michigan’s electoral
votes,” the statement said. Mr. Trump’s outreach to state Republicans amid the
ongoing vote certification process was condemned by Democrats and election law
experts as a dangerous intrusion into the election process.
White House
aides declined to respond to questions about the meeting.
Though Mr.
Trump has tried mightily to stymie the process with ineffective lawsuits and
false claims of fraud, his failure to bend lawmakers in Georgia and Michigan to
his will signals a rapidly vanishing path for his corrosive efforts to subvert
the nation’s election system.
Georgia’s
certification is the leading edge of a series of battlegrounds that over the
next five days could officially declare Mr. Biden the winner, with Michigan and
Pennsylvania facing a deadline of Monday and Nevada scheduled to certify on
Tuesday.
While the
president met with Michigan lawmakers at the White House, Mr. Biden’s
transition marched forward, despite the Trump administration’s refusal to
cooperate with the transfer of power. The president-elect met with House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and
announced more senior staff appointments for his administration.
“In my Oval
Office, me casa, you casa,” Mr. Biden said to the two Democratic congressional
leaders. “I hope we’re going to spend a lot of time together.”
His
campaign held a briefing with its senior adviser, Bob Bauer, who called Mr.
Trump’s apparent efforts to influence Michigan officials into helping him
overturn the state’s results “an abuse of office” and “absolutely appalling.”
Echoing
election experts, Mr. Bauer said Mr. Trump had “no chance whatsoever" to
change the outcome.
On Thursday
Mr. Biden issued his most forceful condemnation yet of Mr. Trump’s obstruction.
“Incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how
democracy functions,” Mr. Biden said in remarks in Wilmington, Del.
While
Democrats and legal experts have denounced Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the
results of the election, the vast majority of elected Republicans in Congress
and statehouses around the country have either remained largely silent or have
offered explicit support. Some, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, have even joined the effort to advance Mr. Trump’s cause.
But on
Friday, a few more Republicans broke with the president. Representative Kay
Granger, a senior Texas Republican and ranking member of the Appropriations
Committee, told CNN that she had “great concerns” about Mr. Trump’s actions and
that “I think it’s time for him to really realize and be very clear about
what’s going on.”
Senator
Lamar Alexander, a retiring senator from Tennessee, said in a statement that
the Trump administration needed to start participating in the transition
process.
“If there
is any chance whatsoever that Joe Biden will be the next president, and it
looks like he has a very good chance, the Trump Administration should provide
the Biden team with all transition materials, resources and meetings necessary
to ensure a smooth transition so that both sides are ready on day one,” Mr.
Alexander said. “That especially should be true, for example, on vaccine
distribution.”
Their
comments follow those of other Republicans who were more forceful in their
criticism of the president on Thursday. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said the
president was trying to “subvert the will of the people,” and Gov. Larry Hogan
of Maryland said it was “bad for the country and our standing in the world.”
Mr. Trump
has continued to look for ways to reverse the election result even though there
is still no likely legal path for him to succeed. He has discussed with aides a
dubious theory that if certification were delayed in states with
Republican-controlled legislatures, the lawmakers might then name a new slate
of electors more favorable to him.
But in
Michigan, for instance, that appears nearly impossible. While the state
canvassing board process is considered perfunctory once all 83 counties certify
the results, at least one of the Republican members, Norm Shinkle, has
indicated he may ask for an investigation. Any deadlock will most likely be
taken to the state Court of Appeals, seeking an order to force the canvassing
board to certify the election results.
If the
board still refuses to certify after the court order, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a
Democrat, could remove the members who refuse to certify, after a hearing, said
Steve Liedel, an election law attorney from the Dykema Gossett firm in Lansing.
The
delegation of seven Michigan lawmakers said in a statement by Mike Shirkey, the
State Senate majority leader, and Lee Chatfield, the speaker of the Michigan
House, that they had accepted the invitation from the president to push for
additional federal funds to help in the fight against the coronavirus. But they
also sent a message about what they stand for, at a moment when Michigan
Republican officials are facing pressure from all sides on the vote count.
“Michigan’s
certification process should be a deliberate process free from threats and
intimidation,’’ the statement said. “Allegations of fraudulent behavior should
be taken seriously, thoroughly investigated, and if proven, prosecuted to the
full extent of the law. And the candidates who win the most votes win elections
and Michigan’s electoral votes. These are simple truths that should provide
confidence in our elections.”
Mr. Trump’s
legal challenges have so far produced mostly losses and embarrassing missteps.
An affidavit filed by Mr. Trump’s legal team intended to prove voter fraud in
Michigan apparently used data taken from counties in Minnesota, the latest in a
series of embarrassments that have made the president’s uphill legal fight even
steeper.
In
Wisconsin this week, the president turned to a reality-warping tactic he has
used more commonly in attacks against news organizations, falsely describing a
routine meeting of the state elections commission about recount rules and
manuals as a shadowy, back-room ploy against him. The event, a standard step in
the electoral process, was livestreamed.
During the
recount in Dane County, Wis., on Friday, which was also livestreamed, the Trump
campaign tried to object to every single ballot individually as it was brought
up, forcing the three-member board of election officials there to simply accept
that they were challenging all ballots en masse so as to speed up the process.
While the
certification in Georgia signified a significant moment in securing the will of
the state’s voters, it was not without some public hiccups. News of the
certification was announced prematurely in a news release early on Friday,
leading the secretary of state to have to issue a corrective statement.
Mr. Biden
was able to flip Georgia, a state that had not voted for a Democratic
presidential candidate since 1992, by winning with large margins in Atlanta and
Savannah and performing significantly better than other recent Democratic
candidates for president in the affluent and fast-growing suburban ring around
Atlanta. But with a margin of victory within 0.25 percent, the state undertook
a full, manual hand recount of the election, which it completed earlier this
week.
The recount
reaffirmed that Mr. Biden received more votes, but several hundred uncounted
ballots were discovered in four counties, somewhat diminishing Mr. Biden’s
lead.
Nonetheless,
Mr. Raffensperger faced enormous pressure from prominent Republicans, including
the president and Mr. Graham, to look hard for potential electoral fraud. The
state’s two G.O.P. senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, staunch Trump
allies who are engaged in tight runoff elections, called on Mr. Raffensperger
to resign; they said his management of the process was an “embarrassment’’ and that he ‘‘failed to
deliver honest and transparent elections.’’
But Mr.
Raffensperger pushed back and defended the state’s electoral system, and issued
his certification on Friday afternoon.
Soon
afterward, Mr. Kemp indicated he would sign off on the certification, saying
that “as governor I have a solemn responsibility to follow the law, and that is
what I’ll continue to do.”
He added
that signing the certification “paves the way for the Trump campaign to pursue
other legal options in a separate recount if they choose.”
As of
Friday night, the Trump campaign had not issued any formal indication about
future challenges in Georgia. It has two business days to do so.
Kathleen
Gray contributed reporting from Detroit. Glenn Thrush, Michael Crowley and Nick
Fandos contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
Richard
Fausset is a correspondent based in Atlanta. He mainly writes about the
American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal
justice. He previously worked at the Los Angeles Times, including as a foreign
correspondent in Mexico City. @RichardFausset
Nick Corasaniti
covers national politics. He was one of the lead reporters covering Donald
Trump's campaign for president in 2016 and has been writing about presidential,
congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns for The Times since 2011.
@NYTnickc • Facebook
Maggie
Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015 as a
campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018
for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. @maggieNYT
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