Mike Pence Refuses During Debate To Accept Election Results
President Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results of the November election if he loses, citing discredited conspiracy theories about mail-in voting. During Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, Mike Pence joined Trump in undermining the legitimacy of the country’s democratic process by saying he believes that supposed voter fraud might taint the outcome.
In the final question of the debate, moderator Susan Page asked Pence what he would do if Trump refused to peacefully transfer power. Pence responded by insisting that his boss would win reelection — and by falsely claiming that mail-in voting creates a high risk of voter fraud, which is a largely nonexistent problem that Trump and the Republican party have hyped as part of their efforts to sow doubt in the outcome of the election.
“Well, Susan, first and foremost, I think we’re going to win this election,” Pence said, accusing Biden of being part of the “establishment” for the past 47 years. (Pence, a former congressman and governor, first ran for Congress, unsuccessfully, 32 years ago.)
Pence further claimed that he and Trump “are fighting every day in courthouses to prevent Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from changing the rules and creating this universal mail-in voting that will create massive opportunities for voter fraud.”
It is true that Trump and the Republican party are waging a legal campaign against mail-in voting, a long-standing practice that has been expanded during the pandemic so that voters can cast ballots without risking COVID-19 exposure. But the lawsuits have nothing to do with fraud: Instead, they are aimed at making it harder for registered voters to cast mail-in ballots by exploiting technicalities that could prevent legitimate ballots from being counted.
The Republican strategy is simple. Fear-mongering about voter fraud is a form of voter intimidation and could discourage those who are worried about inadvertently...
