FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington - December 3, 2020 — In response to President Trump’s refusal to concede defeat despite the consistent failure of his legal challenges and the completion of the election certification process in most states, Freedom House issued the following statement:
“President Trump’s continued denial that he lost his reelection bid can no longer be tolerated,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, president of Freedom House. “The people have spoken. Independent courts have dispensed with numerous legal challenges. The state certification process is largely complete, and the Electoral College will cast ballots in less than two weeks. According to the law and the US constitution, Donald Trump’s presidency will end at noon on January 20. But as long as he maintains his false assertions about fraud—and his attempts to impose those fictions on other politicians, government institutions, and ordinary Americans—he will chip away at the foundations of our constitutional republic and damage the cause of free self-government more broadly.”
“The president may have personal, political, or financial reasons for persisting in his efforts, but these are frankly insignificant when weighed against the wellbeing of our country and our democracy, which greatly influences the rest of the world,” Abramowitz continued. “Freedom House believes that all American political figures, and especially Republican officeholders, have a patriotic and moral obligation to publicly reject the outgoing president’s claims and push back on any attempts to overturn the election result. American citizens and foreign audiences must be told as clearly as possible that President Trump’s stolen-election narrative has been banished to the extreme fringes of political discourse, and that the United States’ long record of democratic order will remain unbroken.”
Background:
As of December 1, more than two-thirds of the 50 states had certified their election results, including all of the closely contested swing states, handing victory to Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Nevertheless, President Trump on December 2 released a video statement from the White House in which he repeated a litany of fraud claims that have been rejected by courts and election officials across the country.
The United States is rated Free in Freedom in the World 2020 and Free in Freedom on the Net 2020.
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