WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — President-elect Joe Biden will meet with two of Democrats’ top congressional leaders Friday.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is expected to host Republican lawmakers from Michigan at the White House, amid his ongoing efforts to overturn election results. The cases are aimed at blocking or delaying the certification of election results in key battleground sates won by Biden.
On Friday morning, Georgia’s top elections official, Brad Raffensperger, said he will certify that Biden won the state’s presidential election after a hand tally stemming from a mandatory audit. Shortly after Raffensperger’s announcement, Biden campaign legal advisor Bob Bauer held a briefing discussing election result challenges.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in Delaware Friday.
Biden had talked to the pair by phone last week about the intensifying coronavirus pandemic and the prospect of Congress passing a COVID-19 relief bill.
It isn’t immediately clear what Trump’s meeting with lawmakers from Michigan, another battleground state, will be about. But his campaign is openly floating the notion of trying to get friendly state legislatures to appoint electors who would overturn the will of the voters. The Michigan Legislature would be called to select electors if Trump succeeds in convincing the state’s board of canvassers not to certify Biden’s victory in the state.
During the news briefing Friday, Bauer said the Trump campaign’s claims of voting fraud “denigrate, defame and deride this entire process” and referred to President’s standing as a “hopeless legal position.”
Bauer stated that “they are also unable to stitch together any kind of substantiated or coherent claim that fraud affected the outcome of the election” and addressed two strategies unfolding — trying to get the state legislators involved for intervention and attempts to delay the certification of votes in states.
“No state legislature in our country’s history ever has done what Donald Trump is apparently agitating for the Michigan state legislature to do, which is to ignore the results of a popular vote,” said Bauer. “It cannot be done, the Constitution does not permit a state legislature to do what Donald Trump wants the state legislature to do.”
There has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud in Michigan or any other state. Federal and state officials from both parties have declared the 2020 election safe and secure.
Trump’s attempts to reverse the election outcome through lawsuits and recounts have met with little success. A series of cases filed by his campaign have been dismissed for lack of evidence.
Biden secured victory in Georgia Thursday, winning the state’s 16 electoral votes, according to the Associated Press. A hand tally of ballots cast in the presidential race affirmed Biden’s narrow lead over Trump in Georgia, the state’s top election official confirmed.
The Associated Press has declared Biden the winner of the 2020 election, with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232.