Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said Thursday that all Americans deserve to know that the Nov. 3 presidential election was conducted in a way that was “free, fair, safe and secure.”
As the Trump campaign launches a growing number of legal challenges across the nation over voter fraud allegations, Murtaugh asserted that it is integral voters are able to trust in the process of electing their representatives.
“Over 72 million people now have voted for President Trump and those Americans deserve to know that this election was free, fair, safe and secure. And they deserve to know that every legal vote is counted, and that every illegal vote is not counted,” he told reporters during a press call with Trump campaign legal counsel Matt Morgan.
“You know who else deserves to know that? Everyone who voted for Joe Biden as well. And that is not just about this election, it’s about every election moving forward,” Murtaugh continued.
Murtaugh said that the ability of people being able to vote for their elected representatives is “the most basic building block of our representative democracy, our Republic.”
“If people cannot trust in that process, then we have truly lost our way. So the President owes it to every American to ensure that this process is fair, and that it adheres to the law.”
President Trump’s legal team has filed a number of lawsuits in battleground states over a variety of alleged irregularities, while Trump himself has claimed that he is aware of voter fraud that occurred, without specifying how widespread the alleged cases are.
While media outlets can make their own projections as to the winner of the election, state electors and the Electoral College are the bodies that are officially tasked with declaring a presidential winner. Each state has different deadlines for when officials must certify their election results, and the Electoral College votes on Dec. 14. Inauguration Day is Jan. 20, 2021.
A number of GOP officials, including top members of Congress, are yet to back legacy media’s projections for a Biden victory. That includes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who told senators on the floor of the Senate that Trump is well within his rights to challenge the election and weigh his legal options.
“As we are laying out our case in state after state, we feel that you simply cannot ignore the very real evidence of irregularities in the sworn affidavits of people in the counting rooms, who witnessed bad behavior, and things like stacks of ballots being run through scanners multiple times,” Murtaugh continued.
“And the fact that our watchers were prevented from having access, as provided by law, or harassed, intimidated, or kept too far away, to have anything resembling meaningful access, or that voters were treated differently based on where in the state they voted, or when they voted.
“We want every legal vote to be counted, and every illegal vote to be tossed out,” he added.
Morgan meanwhile highlighted a Nov. 12 ruling from Pennsylvania judge Mary Hannah Leavitt saying that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar overstepped her authority to change an election deadline just two days before Election Day.
“This supports our continued assertion that the Secretary of State continues to play fast and loose with statutory dates and deadlines and has done so throughout this entire election,” Morgan told reporters.
Morgan accused the Secretary of State of “purposely” excluding the Trump campaign and its poll watchers from observing “significant portions of the election.” State election law requires the presence of poll watchers from all parties.
This hindered the campaign’s ability to “independently quantify how many of these invalid ballots may have been counted,” Morgan said.
“No county can constitutionally apply different standards to determine which ballots are lawfully counted, and doing so violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by making males more likely to count in certain areas,” Morgan added.
