Washington: President Donald Trump and some of his Republican supporters are testing out a rallying cry for his uphill fight to reverse the lead that Joe Biden holds in key battleground states: count all “legal” votes.
The language is freighted with a clear implication, namely that Democrats want illegal votes counted, a claim for which there is no evidence.
But it underscores Trump’s strategic imperatives as Biden closes in on securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, tactics that are rooted more in political messaging than legal precedent.
“It’s not the use of the word ‘legal’ vote, it’s the constant insinuation that there are so many illegal or fraudulent votes out there,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California Irvine and author of the Election Law blog.
“There’s no evidence produced by the campaign to support there has been a lot of fraud.” Even Trump’s own administration has pushed back at the claims of widespread voter fraud and illegal voting – though it didn’t mention Trump was the one making the allegations.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, federal agency that oversees U.S. election security, also noted local election offices have detection measures that “make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots.”
