One Illinois Congressman is saying that the election challenges by President Donald Trump need to be complete before the nation can declare a winner. The national news media declared that Democrat Joe Biden is the president-elect over the weekend after several close vote totals fell in his favor in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Michigan.
President Trump has vowed to take his fight to the courts claiming illegal votes were counted in some of those states and that voter fraud also happened. 18th District Congressman Darin LaHood says the legal process needs to play out first: “All legal votes should be counted, and any credible claims of fraud should be investigated. Fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and so their integrity must be protected. It appears to me that the legal challenges are narrowing for President Trump, but I think we got to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, and let the legal process play out. You know that is why you go before courts. That is why you go before independent judges, so that they can look at the facts and evidence and determine that. I think we have to give him his time to go through this, but as you saw from many of the media outlets and others, they’ve called the election for Biden. It appears he is on his way.”
LaHood says he is reminded of the infamous Gore-Bush decision in 2000: “I go back and remember when Al Gore eventually conceded to George Bush. I mean that was 33 days after the election, so this is too important to the future of our democracy not to look into any allegations of fraud. I support that until those legal challenges are exhausted which I think could happen here in the next week or so.”
LaHood says he doesn’t know what to expect with a Biden administration. LaHood was a freshman representative when Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama. LaHood said that he hopes that more moderate policy will come from Biden and Democrats rather than what LaHood characterized as radical socialist policies at the furthest wings of the party. Election results are expected to be finalized by all 50 states on November 17th.