Electoral College Republicans In Wisconsin And Nevada Affirm Biden Victory

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President-elect Joe Biden, when all of the vote-counting is completed, might end up with more than 300 electoral votes. But President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede despite Biden's decisive victory, making baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. BuzzFeed News spoke to 11 members of the Electoral College in battleground states — and most of the interviewees, including some Republicans, expressed confidence that Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square.

BuzzFeed reporters Albert Samaha, Amber Jamieson and Rosalind Adams explain, "Biden doesn't officially secure his spot in the Oval Office until the Electoral College votes on December 14. Normally, this step is mostly ceremonial, as electors vote for the same candidate as their constituents did. But Trump and a growing list of Republican supporters are attempting to undermine and delegitimize Biden's win after months of attempting to suppress the vote. Trump and his campaign are amplifying baseless claims of widespread voter fraud."

The journalists continue, "Amid this, some states allow electors to choose any candidate, regardless of vote counts, leaving open the possibility of so-called faithless electors swinging the election at the last minute. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer, however, that states could punish electors who do not vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state."

Bill Feehan, chairman of the La Crosse County Republican Party in Wisconsin, gave no indication that he won't accept the election results in that midwestern state — which Biden won.

Feehan told BuzzFeed, "I'm a man of reason. So, I look to see what evidence is there right now, and essentially, I haven't seen any evidence that proves that there was massive voter fraud, enough to change 20,000 votes in the state of Wisconsin."

Biden also won Nevada, and Eileen Rice — a Republican member of the Electoral College in that state — told BuzzFeed that although she had strong reservations about mail-in voting, the "margin is just too wide" in Biden's favor in Nevada.

Other battleground states in which BuzzFeed interviewed Electoral College members include Pennsylvania and Michigan, both of which Biden won. And according to Samaha, Jamieson and Adams, "nearly all" of the electors BuzzFeed interviewed "expressed confidence that despite Trump's lawsuits — and despite Republicans' attempts to overturn the result — the age-old process of installing a new president would move forward as it always has: with the winner at the ballot box elected into office."

Ryan Boyer, a Democratic elector in Pennsylvania, told BuzzFeed that Trumpian claims of voter fraud in his state are ridiculous — arguing, essentially, that if Democrats were trying to "steal" anything, they would have had a lot more victories on Election Night.

Boyer explained, "If the Democrats were going to steal the election, they did a terrible job…. To say the election was stolen is to effectively say the Republicans did something wrong."

Nonetheless, the BuzzFeed reporters note, "There have been discussions by Republicans to try to change the will of Pennsylvania voters. Lawrence Tabas, chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, told The Atlantic before the election that he had mentioned to the Trump campaign the possibility of the state legislature appointing Republican-aligned electors rather than a Biden slate if the election was 'flawed' — Pennsylvania is the only state where the presidential campaigns nominate the electors — calling it 'one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution.'"

But Democrat Nina Ahmad, an Electoral College member in Pennsylvania, dismissed Republicans who are questioning Pennsylvania's election results as the Trumpian lunatic fringe.

Ahmad told BuzzFeed, "This is just the fringe element, making sure they are signaling to Mein Führer that they are still with him until he takes the poison pill."