Hillary Clinton called on Democrats to mount “massive legal operation” (File)
Washington:
Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump in 2016, said on Tuesday that this year’s Democratic challenger Joe Biden should refuse to concede until all votes are counted in a close and possibly prolonged contest.
Clinton said possible delays in the ballot count – with postal voting set to reach unprecedented levels – mean Biden must refrain from accepting defeat initially.
“Joe Biden shouldn’t concede in any way because I think it will go on forever and ultimately I believe he will win if we don’t give up an inch and are as focused and relentless as the other side,” Clinton said in an interview with Showtime’s “The Circus”.
Clinton, who won nearly three million more votes than Trump overall in 2016 but lost to him in the state-by-state electoral college tally, suggested Republicans hope to get the desired result through the vote in person that day – – and don’t necessarily wait for the deferred mail-in ballots to be counted.
His comments follow warnings from both sides that the election result may not be known on the evening of November 3.
Republicans “have a few scenarios they turn to. One is to spoil the absentee vote,” she said.
“They believe it helps them so that they maybe get a limited advantage in the Electoral College on Election Day,” Clinton said.
She called on Democrats to mount a “massive legal operation”.
“We need to have our own teams of people to counter the intimidating force that Republicans and Trump are going to put outside the polls,” she said.
Americans are expected to vote by mail in large numbers due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Trump has opposed more funding for the cash-strapped US Postal Service, acknowledging the money would be used to help process ballots.
Trump says, without providing evidence, that postal voting will lead to mass fraud and rigged elections. The practice is already common in parts of the United States, without significant fraud, and Trump himself votes by mail.
Democrats accuse Trump of deliberately trying to sabotage the Post’s ability to cope with the expected large increase in volume.
Trump has repeatedly refused to confirm that he will accept the election result. Opinion polls currently show him behind Biden in both popular and college election contests.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
