Press Release

November 20, 2020
Cardin: Republicans Must Insist the Transition to President-elect Joe Biden Move Forward Immediately

We are a democracy and not an autocracy. We cannot allow President Trump undermine legitimate election results.

BALTIMORE – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Special Representative on Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Intolerance for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly, released the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s attempts to delay and overturn the presidential election results. Senator Cardin has previously urged the General Services Administrator (GSA) to officially trigger the transition process.

“The American people voted in a free and fair election with a majority voting for former Vice President Joe Biden over President Trump. This was not the closest election in our nation’s history – by far. President-Elect Biden won the election by more than 5 million votes and won 306 electoral votes compared to 232 electoral votes for President Trump, by the current count.  Election security officials – Democrats, Republican, and independents – have all certified that we held a free and fair election. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that ‘the November 3rd election was ‘the most secure in American history’ and that ‘there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’

“President Trump responded by firing the head of the DHS agency overseeing election security, pursuing baseless and groundless lawsuits, and promoting wild conspiracy theories about a rigged election. These lawsuits have been dismissed as frivolous by both state and federal judges that were appointed by both Republican and Democratic chief executives. All state and local officials must now follow the law, certify the results, and convene the Electoral College in December to cast their votes according to the popular vote winners in their respective states.

“American presidents are supposed to uphold the rule of law in our nation. I call upon President Trump to uphold his oath to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ He must stop trying to meddle in the legal certification process of the states and immediately direct the U.S. General Services Administration to begin the transition process for President-Elect Biden, who will take the oath of office on January 20, 2021. President Trump should follow the examples of Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush and others in terms of a peaceful and orderly transition of power. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, lives increasingly are put at risk the more we delay this inevitable transition for petty political purposes.

“We are a democracy and not an autocracy. We cannot allow President Trump to do the bidding of President Putin and other dictators by trying to undermine valid election results. If a foreign leader was acting in such a blatant way to overturn legitimate election results, the full United States Congress would forcefully condemn such autocratic and undemocratic moves. My Republican Congressional colleagues need to stop coddling President Trump’s ego and put our national security first. They must insist that President Trump allow the transition process for President-Elect Biden to move forward immediately.”

 

###

 

X