It was just noise when it started — Donald Trump spouting wild, unsubstantiated claims about election fraud, his lawyer seething at an almost comical press conference in the parking lot of a Philadelphia landscaping business. But one week after an election in which Joe Biden received close to 5 million more popular votes than Trump and captured more than 270 electoral votes, the president and top Republican Party officials are nowhere near conceding. And with his posturing — and statements of Cabinet officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — Trump is fueling a bonfire that’s consuming the GOP and disrupting the traditional transfer of power. It will be nearly impossible for Republicans to alter the outcome or prevent Biden from taking office. Counting all the states where he currently leads in voting, Biden has 306 electoral votes. In Michigan, Biden’s lead at the moment is more than 10 times larger than Trump’s winning margin was there in 2016. To date, Trump’s campaign has yet to produce evidence in any state of the kind of widespread ballot fraud the president alleges. Yet one week after the election, there is no sign any of that is sinking in. Instead, the controversy seems to be metastasizing within GOP circles, as the party unites behind an idea that threatens to distract Washington and state capitals for weeks amid an ongoing pandemic and a looming transition of government.
National: Threats to Election Officials Amassed as Trump Refused to Concede | Dan Glaun/PBS
The man’s voice shook with rage as he accused the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office of throwing the election to President-elect Joe Biden. He offered no evidence but included a string of insults, expletives and slurs. “You guys cheated and lied. You guys f****** lied and cheated,” he said in the 27-second long voicemail reviewed by FRONTLINE. “You guys are f****** dead.” The message, received within days of the election, was one of an “abnormal” number of threats to election officials and ballot counters across the country compared to typical presidential races, said Benjamin Hovland, the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan federal agency that assists state governments with election administration. These threats continued to accumulate as President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat, two weeks after polls closed — despite Joe Biden being projected as the president-elect, based on unofficial tallies from states. The exact number of incidents of poll-worker intimidation is unknown. But a FRONTLINE review, based on questions to a dozen election and law enforcement agencies in five swing states, as well as local media reports, found examples of threats or acute security risks to election workers in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia. “What we’re seeing this year — more than we have historically — is we have, thus far, baseless accusations of fraud and an unwillingness to acknowledge the results as being what they are,” Hovland told FRONTLINE. “You’re seeing that spin out on social media, in particular. You’re seeing it be amplified and various pieces of mis- or disinformation being thrown in — various conspiracy theories about the election administration process.”
Full Article: Threats to Election Officials Amassed as Trump Refused to Concede