For Trump, challenging an election loss
would be tough
Send a link to a friend
[October 21, 2016]
By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg
(Reuters) - If Donald Trump were to
challenge the outcome of next month's presidential election, as he has
hinted he might, he would face a difficult and expensive fight,
according to election attorneys and a review of voting laws in key
battleground states.
Trump has said he is worried the Nov. 8 election might be rigged in
favor of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and in Wednesday's debate he
refused to say he would accept the outcome.
But before any court challenge, Trump probably would have to ask for a
recount, said Donald Brey, a Republican election lawyer in Ohio. If the
campaign did not pursue out-of-court options first, he said, a judge
likely would dismiss the case.
Recount rules vary from state to state. North Carolina, for example,
doesn't allow a presidential candidate to request a recount at all if
one candidate has a lead of more than 0.5 percent of the total votes
cast.
In Wisconsin, the challenging candidate must pay the full expense of a
recount if the vote in dispute is more than 0.25 percent, and in
Colorado if it is more than 0.5 percent.
That can be expensive. Officials in one Wisconsin village put the cost
of a local recount, in which about 9,000 votes were cast earlier this
year, at nearly $13,000, said Michael Maistelman, a Wisconsin election
lawyer who represented the unsuccessful candidate. More than 3 million
people voted in the 2012 presidential election in Wisconsin.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/21/images/ads/current/graue_sda_june2015.png)
Deciding where to challenge the election would be complicated. Trump,
who trailed Clinton by 7 percentage points nationwide in a Reuters/Ipsos
poll released last week, is fighting tight battles in some key states.
In Ohio, for example, an average of major opinion polls reviewed by the
RealClearPolitics website found Trump to be leading by less than 1
percentage point. In Iowa, he is leading by nearly 4 percent.
In some other battleground states, polls suggest support for Trump has
eroded in recent weeks. According to the RealClearPolitics website's
poll tally, Clinton has substantial leads in Virginia, Colorado and
Wisconsin. She leads Trump by more than 6 percentage points in
Pennsylvania, nearly 4 points in Florida and more than two points in
North Carolina.
To maximize his chances of overturning a Clinton win, Trump might need
to challenge the results in several states, said Troy McCurry, a former
Republican National Committee lawyer who was part of the party's recount
team in 2012.
Trump could try to bring a legal claim without first asking for recount
by alleging, for instance, that an abuse of power by an election
official, said McCurry, who's law firm represented Ted Cruz in the
Republican primary before McCurry joined the practice.
But if Trump's lawyers were unable to muster specific facts to support
that premise, he said, a judge would dismiss the lawsuit.
Any lawsuit that withstood early challenges would face an uncertain
future. With the U.S. Supreme Court split 4-to-4 between liberal and
conservative justices, state supreme courts or federal appeals courts
could well make the final ruling in any election dispute.
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/102116pics/news_v41.jpg)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a campaign rally
in Delaware, Ohio, U.S. October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/21/images/ads/current/Symphony_lda_091814.png)
In Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida, where a majority of both
state and federal appeals court judges have Democratic affiliations,
Trump might face a more difficult road.
Meanwhile, appeals courts in Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa are more
heavily Republican.
Ohio election attorney Brey, who said he dislikes but will vote for
Trump, believes a challenge in Ohio would be a last-ditch effort for
the candidate.
"Let's put it this way," he said. "If Ohio is close, Trump's already
lost."
Trump also might face obstacles from his own party, attorneys said,
because it would be reluctant to challenge results in a state where,
say, it lost the presidential race but won a close U.S. senate race.
Numerous studies have shown U.S. elections, which are decentralized
and run by the states, are basically sound.
"Mr. Trump never mentions what criteria would be necessary for him
to make a decision about a challenge," said Stephen Zack, an
attorney who represented Vice President Al Gore in the case that was
brought to the Supreme Court over the election recount in Florida in
2000.
"Basically it is left as, 'I'll see what it smells like and then I
will surprise you,'" Zack said. "There are rule-of-law issues that
pertain to elections that separate us from anywhere else in the
world."
Election officials in several states rejected suggestions the
balloting might be rigged. Eric Spencer, election director in
Arizona, said that while isolated incidents of voter fraud might
occur and should be investigated, election workers come from all
political parties and work with integrity.
"The notion that the election is rigged is preposterous if not
insulting," Spencer said.
Some election watchers question how serious Trump is about a
challenge.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/21/images/ads/current/stacy_sda_101816.png)
"A lot of this is just posturing," McCurry said. "At the end of the
day I don't see how this happens."
(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New
York; Editing by Sue Horton and Lisa Girion)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |