Trump’s willingness to dispute election

Retiree Gerald Miller, a volunteer at Donald Trump’s rally here, is confident his man will win on November 8 – unless there’s foul play.

When asked if he would accept the result of the upcoming presidential election if he lost, Republican nominee Donald Trump told the audience in Las Vegas and the millions watching at home: “I will tell you at the time”. “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News, Wednesday night that Trump’s refusal to say he would accept the results was “political suicide”.

Speaking at a campaign rally yesterday in OH, he reiterated his stance. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said Thursday: “As a former attorney general, I believe he should accept the result”.

To constantly charge, as he has, that the election will be rigged – with no real evidence to back up his allegations – is a danger to our democracy and the words of a thug rather than a potential president.

Passed in 2011, Texas’ strict voter ID law repeatedly landed the state on the national stage, most recently earlier this year when a federal appeals court found it discriminatory. And what’s risky about all this talking about rigged elections isn’t the fact that it undermines the confidence in election results, it’s the fact that it empowers the forces in our society who actually are trying to undermine our democracy, and yes, rig our elections.

Despite offering little evidence for any of his claims, his “rigged” election message is resonating with his followers in this traditional battleground state where Democratic rival Hillary Clinton has opened up a wide lead. Even after a consortium of media outlets concluded that George W. Bush had indeed won more votes in Florida, Democrats continued to claim the election had been “stolen” by the Supreme Court and Bush was an illegitimate president. Donald Trump’s recent statements on “needing to watch polling booths” in parts of Pennsylvania and raising the issue at campaign stops increases the visibility of the issue and may undercut Americans’ trust in the electoral system.

“You remember Al Gore in 2000?” “It went all the way to the Supreme Court”.

They will not be the only ones out in force on Election Day. Gore even placed a post-midnight call to Bush to concede.

At the time, Clinton was far ahead of Trump – she had an 83 percent chance of winning to his 17, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump said, prompting chants of “USA!”, some foul language shouted at the press corps and, after the rally, a mass chant of “Shame on you!” directed at the press risers.

“Let there be no doubt”. I think he’s finally calculated what many of us have been saying for weeks and months, which is that he simply can’t win. “I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new president-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends”. Seeing poll after poll that show him losing badly, Donald Trump has focused on a theme that is increasingly, disturbingly, popular in this country: The voting system is rigged.

There is a difference between election rigging, which is perpetrated through corruption, and voter fraud, which happens when dead people vote. The state’s controlling party aggressively seeks to root out alleged fraud, while Democrats decry such GOP efforts as a ploy to suppress the vote. Gore then requested a manual recount, which finally took place statewide in December.

Other Republicans, including the chair of the Republican National Committee, have tried to dismiss Trump’s debate comments, assuring the public that he will in fact concede if he loses to Hillary Clinton.