Politics

26, November 2020

Bamileke Chiefs intensifies call for President Biya to step down ⁰

Some French Cameroun traditional rulers are now calling for constitutional reform and consultation among opinion leaders that will herald a smooth political transition in Yaoundé.

Constitutional reform, political transition, the war in Southern Cameroons, the revision of the electoral code, and inclusive dialogue among Cameroonian opinion leaders including the diaspora are among the topics of discussion that preoccupied traditional leaders in the western region of French Cameroun this week.

The chiefs of the Bamileke constituencies whose subjects secretly financed the genocide campaign currently going on in Southern Cameroons unanimously opined that they want to help the CPDM crime syndicate in seeking solutions to the numerous political crises facing the two Cameroons.

In a statement made public recently, the Bamileke chiefs observed that “The so-called NoSo war is sinking into an unbearable barbarity with the main victims being civilians and even children who just wanted to get an education. Assassinations, beheadings, summary executions, kidnappings and humiliations of all kinds are multiplying and becoming commonplace, thus seriously undermining human rights and dignity in our country,”

Regarding the political transition in Yaounde, the Bamileke traditional leaders, suggested a constitutional reform that will ensure stability and get a new figure to run government business in Yaoundé.

Some French Cameroun political commentators have expressed scepticism about getting a political transition in Cameroon before the end of President Biya’s term.

With age openly telling on the president, Paul Biya, 87 years old, has been in power for 38 years. The dictator claimed he was re-elected to a seventh term of 7 years at the end of the election of October 7, 2018.

The declaration of the traditional chiefs of the West comes at a time when many see no solution in sight following the acceptance by the collapsing regime to stage first regional elections on December 6.

Cameroon Concord News understands that at the end of these elections, 900 regional councillors will be elected. There will be 90 councillors in each region, including 70 representatives from government departments and 20 from various chiefdoms. The elections are being boycotted by two of the largest opposition parties, the MRC and the SDF.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

25, November 2020

Three weeks after vote still no official US president ⁰

The United States presidential election remains unresolved three weeks after the vote, drastically undermining perceptions regarding the quality of their political system.

Three weeks after the US presidential election there is still no clear winner. However, incumbent Donald Trump has now permitted the government agency which handles presidential transitions to begin working with Democrat Joe Biden, and key swing states have just certified the election in favor of Biden.

Recent polls from top media such as The Economist reveal that nearly half the country wants Trump to litigate, believes fraud swung the vote in Biden’s favor, and views Biden’s victory as illegitimate. Trump has still not spoken publicly on the subject, only communicating his refusal to concede via Twitter, repeatedly. The fact of America’s intense division still remains, and many wonder how and if the nation can be united.

Even though the election was on November 3rd, many urban areas are still boarded up and resemble war zones. The political chaos continues to feed concerns that the violent protests and rebellions from earlier in the year will return.

Biden is starting to unveil his cabinet, which was described by the mainstream media site Politico, as a “team of careerists”, because not since George Bush the first have so many key positions been handed to personal loyalists and longtime Washington insiders. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party and other party factions have been almost totally excluded.

For Secretary of State Biden has tapped Antony Blinken, viewed as the architect of Barack Obama’s interventionist foreign policy and the longtime advisor to Biden who persuaded him to vote for the second war on Iraq. Blinken was a major proponent of US involvement in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, the Saudi-led war on Yemen, and is considered a major hawk on Russia. He is expected to push the US to try and rejoin the JCPOA agreement on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Source: Presstv

25, November 2020

Bundes: German vote to pick Merkel successor set for Sept 26, 2021 ⁰

The German government on Wednesday agreed on September 26 next year for the general election to choose a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, a government spokeswoman said.

Merkel has said she will not stand for a fifth term and will retire from politics next year after 16 years at the helm of Europe’s top economic power and the EU’s most populous country.

Her departure will mark a new, less certain phase in German politics and at the heart of the European Union, whose rotating presidency Merkel currently holds.

The government “proposes to the federal president the date of Sunday, September 26, 2021 for the election of the 20th Bundestag (lower house of parliament),” spokeswoman Martina Fietz told reporters.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier must still give his official approval.

The race to fill Merkel’s shoes still looks wide open, as her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party remains embroiled in an increasingly bitter leadership battle that has been extended by the pandemic.

There are currently three hopefuls for the top job in Germany’s biggest party, with a twice-delayed election for a new chief now scheduled for mid-January.

North Rhine-Westphalia state premier Armin Laschet, corporate lawyer Friedrich Merz and foreign affairs expert Norbert Rottgen are vying for the post.

The candidates have proposed an online congress if meeting in person were to be impossible because of restrictions to curb coronavirus transmission.

– Pandemic uncertainty –

The chief of the CDU traditionally leads it and its smaller Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union to the polls.

However given the failure of any of the Christian Democrat candidates to create real momentum at this early stage, CSU chief and Bavarian premier Markus Soeder has been the focus of ardent speculation about a possible run.

Bavaria has been among the states hardest hit by coronavirus infections and Soeder’s robust response to the outbreak has won praise and given him an intense national spotlight.

He leads opinion polls against all three CDU candidates when Germans are asked who they would like to see as their next chancellor.

Yet Germany’s complex coalition maths, the uncertainty created by the pandemic and the absence of Merkel as a foregone conclusion in a German general election could well throw up other surprises.

The Social Democrats (SPD), the country’s oldest party and junior partners in the “grand coalition” government, have haemorrhaged support as the centrist Merkel occupied and helped define the middle ground of Germany’s consensus-oriented politics during her long tenure.

However pollsters say a more conservative CDU leader could drive some Merkel voters into the arms of the SPD, or the ecologist Greens, in opposition since 2005.

The Greens have benefited from growing concern about the climate, particularly among young voters, while making lasting inroads among urban, affluent Germans.

Polls show increasing openness to a CDU-Greens coalition, which would be a first at the national level in Germany.

The pro-business Free Democrats, frequent kingmakers in German post-war politics, are currently polling in the single digits, as is the far-left Linke.

Meanwhile the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has about 10-percent support and is currently the biggest opposition force in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.

But the mainstream parties have ruled out joining forces with it in government.

Source: AFP

24, November 2020

Burkina Faso opposition criticises presidential vote as early results favour incumbent Kaboré ⁰

Incumbent Burkina Faso President Roch Kaboré was leading with just 12 of around 360 voting districts declared on Monday, the electoral commission said, while opposition parties cast doubt on the credibility of the results thus far.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens were unable to cast their ballots during the presidential vote on Sunday because their polling stations remained closed for fear of Islamist violence.

Groups linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group operate across swathes of Burkina Faso, part of a widening jihadist threat in West Africa’s Sahel, a semi-arid region south of the Sahara Desert.

An association of the opposition parties cast doubt on the credibility of the results on Monday, repeating allegations of irregularities and fraud during a joint news conference. Ahead of the vote, international observers said they had seen no evidence of fraud.

Analysts expect a tight race that could go to a second round if no candidate wins more than 50 percent.

Kaboré, who was first elected in 2015, led in most of the dozen voting districts whose results were announced on Monday afternoon, totalling over 53,000 votes, more than double as many as his nearest rival, Zéphirin Diabré.

The electoral commission said further results would be announced on Tuesday.

Diabré is a former finance minister and 2015 runner-up. Kaboré’s other main competitor in the field of 13 candidates is Eddie Komboigo, the head of the party of Blaise Compaoré, who was president for 27 years until a 2014 revolution.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

23, November 2020

Taking the last kicks of a dying horse: Trump campaign parts ways with Powell after vote-switching claim ⁰

The campaign of US President Donald Trump has distanced itself from Sidney Powell, after the lawyer was widely ridiculed for alleging baseless conspiracy theories related to the disputed November 3 election.

Trump, who has not conceded defeat after the media declared his rival Joe Biden the winner of the election, had tweeted on November 14 that Powell would be a member of his legal team, alongside his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis.

However, in a statement on Sunday, Giuliani and Ellis said, “Sidney Powell is practicing law on her own,” adding, “She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team. She is also not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.”

In an interview with Newsmax, Powell said that Dominion Voting Systems “has a long history of rigging elections” and that this is “what it was created to do to begin with.”

The statement comes just days after an extraordinary 90-minute press conference at the Republican National Committee in Washington, during which legal team members argued that a broad “national conspiracy” to deny Trump reelection was underway.

The team has mounted multiple legal challenges to reverse the results in several key states. However, the efforts have so far met with little success in the courtroom or on the ground.

Powell said that Trump had beaten Biden in a landslide, despite the fact that Biden won the state-by-state Electoral College votes, which decide who takes the White House, by 306 to 232.

Biden is also set to win the popular vote by more than six million votes.

Source: Presstv

22, November 2020

US Politics: Federal judge dismisses Trump campaign Pennsylvania lawsuit ⁰

A US federal judge has dealt a new blow to President Donald Trump’s long-shot bid to reverse the results of the disputed presidential election held on November 3.

US District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Saturday dismissed a lawsuit which sought to overturn the results in the state, calling Trump’s legal claim a “Frankenstein’s Monster.”

Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede defeat in the election and mounted multiple legal challenges to reverse the results in several key states. His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, was declared the projected winner.

However, his campaign’s efforts have so far met with little success in the courtroom or on the ground.

The court decision paves the way for Pennsylvania to certify Biden’s victory there, which is scheduled to take place Monday.

Brann described the case as “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations,” adding, “This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together.”

“In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state,” Brann wrote.

“Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”

In response, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in a statement he was disappointed with the ruling, adding, “Today’s decision turns out to help us in our strategy to get expeditiously to the US Supreme Court.”

Biden won the state-by-state Electoral College votes, which decide who takes the White House, by 306 to 232, according to media reports.

The Electoral College is set to formally vote on December 14, with certifications to occur beforehand.

States’ certification of results of their popular votes is normally routine following a presidential election in the United States.

However, Trump’s refusal to concede has complicated the process and raised concerns that he could cause long-term damage to American voters’ trust in their voting system.

So far, a limited number of Republicans have recognized Biden as the winner. On Saturday and following the ruling, Pat Toomey, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, said that Biden “won the 2020 election and will become the 46th president of the United States.”

“President Trump should accept the outcome of the election and facilitate the presidential transition process,” Toomey said in a statement that congratulated Biden.

The ruling came hours after Republicans also asked for a delay in certification in Michigan, another battleground.

In a letter that repeated claims of irregularities in the state which Biden won by 155,000 votes, the Republicans called for a delay of two weeks to allow for a full audit of results in Wayne County.

Republican Party national committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the party’s Michigan chair Laura Cox called on the board to “adjourn for 14 days to allow for a full audit and investigation into those anomalies and irregularities.”

Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has, however, said that audits cannot be carried out until after certification as officials do not have legal access to the documents needed until then.

On Saturday, she posted on Twitter that there had been “no evidence” to put into question the result of the election.

“In a nutshell: 5.5m Michigan citizens voted,” she wrote.

“The results of their votes are clear. No evidence has emerged to undermine that.”

Trump has rarely appeared in public after the media declared Biden the winner of the election, but has not given up on his provocative Twitter campaign.

“The proof pouring in is undeniable,” he tweeted Saturday.

“Many more votes than needed. This was a LANDSLIDE!”

Source: Presstv

22, November 2020

Paul Biya is offering Cameroon’s Anglophones too little, too late ⁰

The announcement of the elections and the implementation measures comes as Cameroon is embroiled by a conflict in which separatist fighters in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions seek to create an independent state called Ambazonia. This conflict stems from the systematic marginalization of Anglophones, who comprise nearly 20 percent of the country’s population, but was sparked by the repression of demonstrations of teachers and lawyers in the fall of 2016 who demanded linguistic autonomy within their respective institutions.

Now, four years after these demonstrations and in the midst of a war of secession that has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands, Biya’s government—which has consistently been ranked as one of the most corrupt and authoritarian in Africa—is seeking to enact decentralization measures. While enacting such reforms at the outset of the crisis may have addressed some of the demands of the demonstrators, doing so now is simply another effort of the Cameroonian government to present the image that it is responding to the crisis and grievances of the Anglophone population without engaging in any meaningful dialogue or negotiations with civil society or separatist leaders.

The regional elections, which are slated to occur on Dec. 6, will elect a total of 90 councilors to each of the regional bodies—70 divisional delegates and 20 traditional rulers. The traditional leaders will be selected by regional chieftaincy bodies, the majority of which are dominated by supporters of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and have backed the party in previous elections.

The Regional Councils have their origins in a 1996 law that amended Cameroon’s 1972 constitution. This constitution was Cameroon’s second following the abolition of a federal form of government by the country’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. Federalism had existed since the former British colony of Southern Cameroons merged with the former French colony of Cameroon in 1961. The constitutional reform of 1996 was announced with the intent of quelling dissent from ethnic and linguistic groups that had been excluded during the first decade of Biya’s government as well as that of his predecessor. The groups that suffered from such marginalization included those from the West and Far North regions, although the predominant group was the Anglophone minority of the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Many years ago, the Cameroonian government agreed to constitutional reforms that had the potential to lead to a devolution of governance to the regional level but refused to implement them.

The discontent that the Anglophone minority felt was compounded by the first multiparty elections held in 1992, during which John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) came in second with 36 percent of the vote while Biya won 40 percent. Allegations of electoral irregularities led to a prolonged period of unrest and a deep sense of marginalization within the Anglophone population.

In response, leaders from Anglophone Cameroon convened the All Anglophone Conference in 1993 that resulted in the Buea Declaration, which called for a return to the federated government that existed prior to 1971. In 1994, the second All Anglophone Conference convened and issued the Bamenda Declaration, stating that if Cameroon did not return to a federal form of government, the Anglophone regions of Cameroon would demand independence.

It was largely in response to these growing demands from Cameroon’s Anglophone community that the National Assembly of Cameroon adopted constitutional reform measures to create a more decentralized state. At the time, the National Assembly was dominated by the ruling CPDM party, and the reform measures were backed by Biya and the government. The amendment stated that regions would be given jurisdiction over land management, budgeting, education, and other areas of governance. It also promised that the main organ responsible for overseeing the decentralized form of governance would be the Regional Councils that were established in the amendment. In addition to regional decentralization, the amendment also made the Cameroonian legislature bicameral by creating the Senate, which comprises 100 members; 30 of the senators are appointed directly by the president with the other 70 being selected by municipal councils across Cameroon.

Despite the fact that the constitutional reforms were approved by the National Assembly, the power to convene elections for both the Senate and Regional Councils that the amendment created was given solely to the president. And although nationwide elections occurred for both the presidency and Parliament the year after the amendment was enacted, Biya did not call elections for the Regional Councils or the Senate, meaning that the new bodies were never created.

Culled from Foreign Policy

21, November 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Involve Women In Peace Talks- YAWC Network ⁰

The Global Leadership of the Young African Women Congress (YAWC) Network has held an extraordinary virtual leadership summit to discuss the ongoing Anglophone crisis in Cameroon.

This followed a request by the leadership of the Cameroon Chapter to the YAWC Network Council to intervene in the crisis following recent killings of school children, believed to be related to a long-standing misunderstanding between the Anglophone regions.

The meeting which was held on 4th November 2020 saw the participation of the YAWC Network Council Chair, who also chaired the meeting, the Executive Secretary, the Global President and Vice President of the Network, Executives of the various National Chapters (Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda). The meeting also received insight from experts in the area of law, international relations, conflict resolution, peace and security.

Top on the agenda were strategies to help to encourage genuine dialogue among the various factions while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of women and children by providing relief services to victims.

To set the tone for discussions, the President of the Cameroon Chapter of the YAWC Network, Ms Rosaline Akweba Obah gave a vivid picture of the situation in the country, siting serious acts of abuse and atrocities committed by various factions in the midst of the crises. She said, “The ongoing crisis in the two English speaking regions of Cameroon has left thousands dead, millions rendered homeless as their property and livestock have been destroyed through burning”.

She, together with her executives, responded to questions with regards to her narrative to inform suggestions and resolutions towards the specific requests made to the YAWC Network Council.

Discussing the matter and paying heed to facts and the legalities of the cases, the YAWC Network Leadership resolved that, it would launch a campaign, both virtual (that is involving the use of electronic posters and videos) and physical if deemed safe, to express concern about the crises. Leaders of the National Chapters were therefore admonished to engage their members to engage in the massive campaign that will follow the meeting until the government’s attention is drawn to the intensity of the crises in the country.

In effect, a special appeal would be made to the government of Cameroon to engage the separatists involved in the crises in any approach found tenable. And much of these dialogues should involve women who bear the biggest brunt of such crises. If possible, measures should be put in place as a matter of urgency to ensure that women and children and the vulnerable are protected in the midst of the misunderstandings.

While efforts are being made to restore peace and tranquillity, the summit recognised the fact that many people had been displaced through the crises. The summit therefore resolved to work in tandem with the leadership of the Cameroon Chapter to mobilise resources from all the other nations where YAWC Network is represented to mitigate the current loss victims may be suffering. Resources that would be gathered in this effort will be only non-perishable goods. Leaders were therefore tasked to inform their members to contribute their quota as far as their efforts would enable them to help their brothers and sisters in Cameroon.

In the same vein, the Cameroon Chapter Executives had identified ten (10) girls whose education could be in jeopardy if help was not found since they lost their parents through the crises. The summit resolved to open a unified account and designated to the Cameroon Chapter. The account will be a pool where all members of the YAWC Network could contribute their monies to help fund the education of these girls.

The YAWC Network remains committed to enforcing these resolutions and look forward to partnering other major stakeholders to bringing lasting peace to Cameroon. And more especially, in a way that would safeguard the sanctity of women and the future of the children in the country.

We call on all well-meaning African women to register and be part of the YAWC Network from whichever country they find themselves and be a part of a global movement that speaks and acts for women in true pan-African way.

Source: Modern Ghana

20, November 2020

US: Georgia vote recount affirms Biden’s victory over Trump in the state ⁰

After a painstaking recount, Georgia officials confirmed on Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the battleground state on Nov. 3, further narrowing the president’s dubious effort to overturn the election results.

The result of the six-day hand recount of the state’s 5 million ballots had been widely expected, despite baseless allegations from Trump and his allies that Georgia’s vote tallies were suspect because of widespread fraud.

Amid a series of losses in court, Trump’s re-election campaign has shifted to a new strategy that relies on persuading Republican state legislators in crucial states to ignore the election results and intervene on Trump’s behalf, according to three people familiar with the plan.

The campaign has filed multiple lawsuits to try to challenge the results in battleground states that Biden won, as election officials across the country have affirmed that there is no evidence of major irregularities. Judges in three states delivered new legal setbacks to the campaign on Thursday, rejecting claims of improper vote counting.

Biden, a Democrat, has captured 306 electoral votes to the Republican Trump’s 232 in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner of the election, well above the 270 needed for victory.

Georgia’s audit, launched after unofficial results showed Biden leading Trump by about 14,000 votes cast, ended with Biden winning by 12,284, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. The state is expected to certify Biden’s victory on Friday.

Trump and his allies, including Georgia’s Republican U.S. senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who both face runoff elections in January, have accused fellow Republican Raffensperger without evidence of overseeing a flawed election, an allegation Raffensperger has angrily disputed.

In remarks on Thursday after a call with 10 state governors, Biden called Trump’s attempt to reverse the results “totally irresponsible.”

“It sends a horrible message about who we are as a country,” said the president-elect, although he expressed no concern that the gambit would succeed in preventing him from taking office on Jan. 20.

While legal experts see Trump’s last-gasp effort as unlikely to succeed, they say the strategy represents an unprecedented assault on the country’s democratic institutions by a sitting president.

The Trump campaign has already asked a judge in Pennsylvania, where Biden won by 82,000 votes, to declare Trump the winner, allowing the Republican-controlled legislature to choose the state’s 20 Electoral College voters.

Several prominent law firms have pulled out of the campaign’s legal challenges, leaving Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to spearhead the efforts.

Giuliani alleges conspiracy

At a news conference on Thursday, Giuliani said he planned to file more lawsuits and that Democrats had engaged in a “national conspiracy” to manipulate vote totals, although he admitted he did not have any evidence.

Other members of the legal team floated a theory involving Venezuela and George Soros, a bogeyman of conservatives, although they said they would probably not pursue it in court.

Giuliani said accounts of suspicious activity would ultimately overturn the election, which Biden won nationwide by 5.9 million votes. Some of those accounts have already been thrown out of court.

“We cannot allow these crooks – because that’s what they are – to steal this election. They elected Donald Trump. They didn’t elect Joe Biden,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani’s agitated performance, featuring rivulets of hair dye running down his face, was widely mocked by Democrats. Others expressed alarm.

“That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history,” tweeted Christopher Krebs, who headed up the U.S. government’s efforts to combat election disinformation until he was fired by Trump earlier this week.

‘No excuse’

Critics say Trump’s refusal to concede has serious implications for national security and the fight against the coronavirus, which has killed more than 250,000 Americans.

Biden is not receiving the classified intelligence due a president-elect, and his transition team has not received the funding, office space and briefings from current government officials normally afforded to an incoming administration.

He warned the delay could cause additional deaths as the pandemic surges to record levels across the country.

“There is no excuse not to share the data and let us begin to plan, because on Day One it’s going to take us time, if we don’t have access to all this data,” he said in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. “It’s going to put us behind the eight ball by a matter of a month or more, and that’s lives.”

The former vice president has focused on preparing his incoming administration, naming senior staff members and getting briefed by his advisers. He said on Thursday he had selected a Treasury secretary and could announce his pick as soon as next week.

Democratic leaders in Congress sent a letter on Thursday to the administrator in charge of releasing transition funds, Emily Murphy, demanding that she explain why she has yet to recognize Biden as president-elect.

Part of the new Trump campaign effort involves trying to delay certification, the normally routine process by which election results are finalized, a senior campaign official said.

In Detroit on Tuesday, Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers refused at first to certify the results, then reversed themselves, then signed affidavits that they wanted to rescind their certification.

One of the members told Reuters that Trump called her after she agreed to certify the results.

Trump’s campaign dropped a federal lawsuit on Thursday challenging the election results in Michigan, citing the Wayne County officials’ affidavits. Officials said the affidavits were too late to stop certification.

Republican legislative leaders from Michigan are scheduled to visit the White House on Friday at Trump’s request, a source in Michigan said, adding the lawmakers planned to hear what the president had to say.

Source: REUTERS

19, November 2020

US: Vote recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin will likely not change Trump election defeat ⁰

President Donald Trump’s attempts to cling to power appeared more tenuous than ever on Wednesday as election officials in Georgia said a soon-to-be-completed recount was not likely to change President-elect Joe Biden’s victory there.

Georgia is one of several states where Trump’s campaign is contesting election returns, so far without success. Election officials there said recount results due to be announced on Thursday were not likely to overturn Biden’s 14,000-vote victory in the state. They also said the recount would not provide evidence for Trump’s unsupported claims of widespread fraud.

“He’s been misinformed on that front,” Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager, told reporters.

Election officials in Wisconsin likewise said that a partial recount requested by the Trump campaign would not reverse the Republican incumbent’s loss in that state, which he won in 2016.

Trump himself has stayed out of the public eye while venting his anger on Twitter. His election-related lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan have met with little courtroom success.

Trump’s refusal to concede the Nov. 3 election is blocking the smooth transition to a new administration and complicating Biden’s response to the coronavirus pandemic when he takes office on Jan. 20.

Opinion polls show Trump’s unfounded claims about the election having been “rigged” have a political benefit, with as many as half of Trump’s fellow Republicans believing them, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Arizona’s top election official, Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, said she faced escalating threats of violence and blamed Trump for spreading misinformation to undermine trust in the results.

The president is holding out hope that a manual recount ordered by Georgia can erase Biden’s lead there. The state’s top election official said that was unlikely.

“I don’t believe at the end of the day it’ll change the total results,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, told CNN.

As of Wednesday morning, Biden’s lead over Trump had fallen to 12,781 ballots, down from 14,156 previously, according to Sterling, the state voting system manager. Sterling said he expected the recount to be completed by midnight EST on Wednesday (0500 GMT Thursday) and certified by the state on Friday.

In Wisconsin, the state Elections Commission said it would oversee recounts in two heavily Democratic counties – Milwaukee and Dane, which includes Madison – after the Trump campaign paid $3 million, less than the $7.9 million estimated cost of a statewide recount.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said a recount would start on Friday and finish within days. He said the recount would probably not change the tally significantly. “Certainly nothing anywhere near what would be required for changing the outcomes,” he said.

Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes to lead Trump 49.5% to 48.8%.

In the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the election winner, Biden captured 306 votes to Trump’s 232. He won the popular vote by more than 5.8 million.

To remain in office, Trump would need to overturn results in at least three large and closely competitive states to reach the threshold of 270 electoral votes. That would be unprecedented.

False claim on Detroit

Trump is also challenging results in Michigan, falsely claiming on Wednesday that the number of votes in Detroit had surpassed the number of residents. The largest city in the state is heavily Democratic.

“In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!” he tweeted.

City records show that 250,138 votes were cast there in the presidential election. That is a little more than a third of the city’s population, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau is 670,031.

The state’s top election official said all counties, including Detroit’s Wayne County, had certified their tallies.

In Pennsylvania, Trump’s campaign sought to reintroduce claims to a lawsuit it dropped three days ago that alleged that Republican observers were not allowed to watch ballot counting. Lawyers said they had dropped the claims because of miscommunication.

Earlier in the day, the state Supreme Court said it would hear an appeal in a separate case challenging thousands of mail-in votes in Philadelphia.

Biden held a virtual meeting on Wednesday with frontline healthcare workers in Delaware who complained about a lack of personal protective equipment and COVID-19 tests for themselves.

He warned that the delay in declaring him the election winner could mean that “soon we’re going to be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative” to distribute coronavirus vaccines when they become available.

The General Services Administration agency, run by a Trump appointee, has yet to formally declare an election winner. Biden’s team says that is hindering coordination with the current White House coronavirus task force.

States face a Dec. 8 deadline to certify election results in time for the official Electoral College vote on Dec. 14.

Congress is scheduled to count the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, which is normally a formality. But Trump supporters in the Senate and House of Representatives could object to the results in a final, desperate attempt to deprive Biden of 270 electoral votes and turn the final decision over to the House.

Election officials from both parties, across the United States, have said there is no evidence of vote tampering, and a federal review drew the same conclusion.

Source: REUTERS