Republican election commissioner says counting votes ‘not a bad thing’

One of three commissioners who ran Philadelphia election - and the only Republican - dismisses Trump’s ‘corruption’ claims

A Republican election commissioner in Philadelphia has dismissed claims of “rigging” by president Donald Trump, saying that “counting votes is not a bad thing”.

It comes as a response to Mr Trump’s now infamous tweet to “STOP THE COUNT!” on 5 November — at a point when he was already behind in the vote tallying process, and an end to counting then would have seen him lose the election anyway.

The Trump campaign has since filed multiple lawsuits to contest the projected results in various states and Mr Trump has refused to concede, even after president-elect Joe Biden declared victory on Saturday following calls by most media outlets giving him an unassailable lead.

Speaking to the CBS News programme 60 Minutes on Sunday, Philadelphia election commissioner Al Schmidt said that “in the birthplace of our republic, counting votes is not a bad thing”. 

“Counting votes cast on or before election day by eligible voters is not corruption. It is not cheating. It is democracy,” he said.

Mr Schmidt was one of the three commissioners who helped run the 2020 elections in Philadelphia and the only Republican.

He added: “There really should not be a disagreement, regardless of party affiliation, when we're talking about counting votes cast on or before election day by eligible voters. It's not a very controversial thing, or at least it shouldn't be.”

The count in Philadelphia and the wider Pennsylvania state gripped the attention in the past week, as it proved to be the projected result that tipped the balance of the election in Mr Biden’s favour. Mr Trump had led the state in the count of on-the-day, in person votes, but was surpassed once growing numbers of mail-in ballots were tallied.

Mr Trump and his legal team have been alleging voter fraud in several swing states and have filed multiple lawsuits to fight their case. Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani announced in a press conference on Saturday that more lawsuits are to come from Monday, including one in Pennsylvania, where they say the Republican poll watchers were denied “meaningful” access. 

Continuing with their efforts to discredit mail-in ballots, claims that so far remain unproven, Eric Trump said: "We are going to win Pennsylvania, but they are trying to cheat us out of it.”

The legal challenges in Pennsylvania also relate to the state’s decision to count mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after election day itself, as long as they were sent and post-marked on or before 3 November. The decision contributed to the delay in counting the state’s results. 

Mr Giuliani speaking to Fox News on Sunday claimed there are voting issues in as many as 10 states. “This was a national plan by Democrats,” he told Maria Bartiromo on her Sunday Morning Futures show – again, without providing evidence.