Trump and Biden on 2020 election results

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2020 Presidential Election Date: November 3, 2020

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This page provides a sampling of statements made by President Donald Trump (R) and former Vice President Joe Biden (D) on voting, election integrity, and the results of the 2020 general election. Dozens of lawsuits were filed by the Trump campaign challenging ballots, election administration, and counting procedures following the election. The Electoral College elected Biden on December 14, 2020, by a vote of 306 electoral votes to 232.

Comments on election integrity after the 2020 general election

Donald Trump

• December 11, 2020:

The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2020

• December 2, 2020: "We used to have what was called Election Day. Now we have election days, weeks, and months, and lots of bad things happened during this ridiculous period of time, especially when you have to prove almost nothing to exercise our greatest privilege, the right to vote. As President, I have no higher duty than to defend the laws and the Constitution of the United States. That is why I am determined to protect our election system, which is now under coordinated assault and siege."

• November 27, 2020: "And there’s no way that Biden got 80 million votes. By the way, the only way he got 80 million votes is through a massive fraud. There’s no way that he got 80 million votes."

• November 7, 2020: "We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed. The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media."

• November 5, 2020: "If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us."

Joe Biden

• December 14, 2020: "The Court sent a clear signal to President Trump that they would be no part of an unprecedented assault on our democracy. Every single avenue was made available to President Trump to contest the results. He took full advantage of each and every one of those avenues. President Trump was denied no course of action he wanted to take. He took his case to Republican governors and Republican Secretary of State as he criticized many of them, to Republican state legislature, to Republican appointed judges at every level. And then the case decided after the Supreme Court’s latest rejection, a judge appointed by President Trump wrote, 'This court has allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case and he has lost on the merits.' Lost on the merits."

• November 24, 2020:

The election is over.

It’s time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric designed to demonize one another.

We have to come together.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 24, 2020

• November 19, 2020: "I think they're witnessing [from Trump] incredible irresponsibility, incredibly damaging messages being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions."

• November 6, 2020: "I know tensions can be high after a tough election like we just had. But we need to remain calm. Patient. And let the process work out as we count all the votes."

• November 4, 2020: "It’s clear that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."

Comments on election integrity prior to the 2020 general election

Donald Trump

• October 1, 2020: "There will be [fraud]. Just take a look at New York. Take a look at the ones — the ballots that were thrown into a garbage can and they all had the Trump name on it. They were military ballots that were thrown into the garbage can. The ones that were on a tray, and they were thrown into a creek or a river. It’s a terrible thing."

• September 29, 2020: "If it's a fair election, I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that."

• September 17, 2020:

Because of the new and unprecedented massive amount of unsolicited ballots which will be sent to “voters”, or wherever, this year, the Nov 3rd Election result may NEVER BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED, which is what some want. Another election disaster yesterday. Stop Ballot Madness! https://t.co/3SMAk9TC1a

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2020

• August 18, 2020: "We have to have honest voting. That’s what this is all about here; it’s honest voting. You can’t take millions of ballots, send them haphazardly all over the country or all — all over a state, and expect to come out properly. And if you look at the last 10 elections, where they did this universal — and, by the way, absentee is great. It’s been working for a long time, like in Florida. Absentee — you request, and it comes in, and then you send it back. Absentee is great, but universal is going to be a disaster, the likes of which our country has never seen. It’ll end up being a rigged election, or they will never come out with an outcome. They’ll have to do it again. And nobody wants that, and I don’t want that."

• August 17, 2020: "We have to win the election. We can’t play games. Go out and vote. Do those beautiful absentee ballots, or just make sure your vote gets counted. Make sure because the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged."

Joe Biden

• September 29, 2020: "We count the ballots, as you [Chris Wallace] pointed out. Some of these ballots in some states can’t even be opened until election day. And if there’s thousands of ballots, it’s going to take time to do it. And by the way, our military… They’ve been voting by ballots since the end of the Civil War, in effect. And that’s what’s going to happen. Why is it, for them, somehow not fraudulent. It’s the same process. It’s honest. No one has established at all that there is fraud related to mail-in ballots, that somehow it’s a fraudulent process."

• August 14, 2020:

Voting by mail is safe and secure. And don't take my word for it:
Take it from the President, who just requested his mail-in ballot for the Florida primary on Tuesday.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 14, 2020

• July 1, 2020: "We’re continuing to fight any effort to exploit the pandemic for political purposes, support the countless state and local officials working like hell to make voting safe and accessible for citizens, especially the most vulnerable, or call out local rules that don’t adequately ensure access to vote."

• June 11, 2020: "It's my greatest concern, my single greatest concern. This president is going to try to steal this election. ... This is a guy [Trump] who said all mail-in ballots are fraudulent, voting by mail, while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary."

• April 23, 2020: "We have to make it easier for everybody to be able to vote, particularly if we are still basically in the kind of lockdown circumstances we are in now. But that takes a lot of money, and it’s going to require us to provide money for states and insist they provide mail-in ballots."

See also

• Ballotpedia's 2020 Election Help Desk
• Election results, 2020
• Presidential election, 2020
• Presidential battleground states, 2020
• Splits between the Electoral College and popular vote
• Pivot Counties

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