RELEASE: Election Reformers Network Congratulates Election Officials and Calls for Acceptance of Election Results

Bethesda, MD; November 16, 2020. The Election Reformers Network deeply appreciates the extraordinary efforts of the thousands of committed Americans who worked tirelessly to ensure the success of the recent elections at all levels of government. This complicated process, made immeasurably more challenging by the Covid-19 pandemic, took place in an orderly process and without any apparent significant problems.  

Having just published a major report on the role of Secretaries of States in U.S. elections, we especially applaud their efforts in ensuring the sound and impartial administration of the 2020 elections. Secretaries of State and other senior election officials supported procedural changes to increase options for voters, resulting in the highest turnout in more than 100 years, and promoted transparency at all levels of the process, providing the most effective guarantee against allegations of fraud and electoral mismanagement.

With the projected outcome announced more than a week ago by all networks, we are deeply concerned over President Trump’s continued unwillingness to concede defeat in this election. President Trump has lost by 306 to 232 votes in the Electoral College as well as losing the popular vote by more than 6 million ballots. As in all democracies, President Trump has a right to seek recourse through the judicial system, but he must present evidence and would have to demonstrate that the problems are sufficient to overcome President-Elect Biden’s margins of victory in at least three states. To date, Trump has presented almost entirely frivolous complaints, all of which have been dismissed by the courts. Moreover, his reported efforts to have state legislatures ignore the popular will and designate pro-Trump electors reflects a denial of reality and represents an open challenge to our democracy.  

Since 1896, every losing presidential candidate in American history has delivered a concession message. John McCain and Mitt Romney made gracious and expeditious concessions. Hillary Clinton did likewise on the day following the election, even though her margin of defeat in the key battleground states was considerably smaller than Trump’s margin in the 2020 election.  

Trump’s failure to concede violates previous norms. A hallmark of any democracy is that the loser accepts defeat. The United States has always been the system new democracies benchmark themselves against; when we degrade our institutions and our democratic civility, it reverberates around the world to the detriment of us all.

To protect American democracy, the Election Reformers Network urges President Trump, his supporters, and Republican Party leaders to accept the election results and support the transition to the Biden Administration.

Photo by Guillermo Latorre on Unsplash