The November election has proven, two weeks on, to be mired with suspicion, conspiracy, and controversy. While major news outlets from Fox News to the Associated Press have called the race for Joe Biden, the final call still rests with the electoral college, which meets on December 14th. As the President and his campaign mount lawsuits over the handling of ballots, GOP lawmakers have stood behind the President’s right to pursue any allegations of voter irregularities.
Senator Rand Paul was one of the first to call for the process to play out, and he told The Cats Roundtable that he, like a majority of Republicans, doubt the legitimacy of the election as it stands.
“The night of the election, President Trump appeared to be far ahead,” the Kentucky Senator explained, but “drip-by-drip” the votes for Biden conveniently rolled in.
“Now, if it’s legitimate, we should investigate it—and they should prove to us it’s legitimate,” Paul said, citing the unprecedented use of mail-in ballots this election season as a reason why this election should be scrutinized properly.
“Now we’re talking about as much as half the votes being mailed in—so it’s incredibly important that the votes be valid,” he emphasized. But Paul told The Cats Roundtable that the Trump-Pence Campaign had to provide statistical evidence to solidify what he and other Republicans suspect.
“They either need a court mandate or tabulation they do themselves,” Rand said. “I don’t think he’s going to convince the court to do it on a few anecdotes—they’re going to have to have statistical samplings that show this could be widespread.”
Rand’s comments to The Cats Roundtable came on the heels of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that ordered the PA. Secretary of State to throw out ballots received after November 3rd. For the Trump campaign, the question is how many votes could turn the keystone state in the President’s favor, with Biden leading by less than a percentile.
“If there are 50,000 or 100,000 votes that came in, then it’s incredibly important,” Paul explained. “If it’s only a couple of hundred, it’s not as important—that’s a detail I just don’t know, but I think what we’ll have to figure out over the next couple of days is: how many ballots did come in that period of time?”
The President has also cast his doubts on the validity of the Dominion Voting system, an election technology system that is used by 24 states. Paul said the current doubts about the influence of technology on the election were well-founded.
“There have been complaints for a long time,” Paul noted. “There was a vocal, small minority that supported my dad in 2008 and 2012 that talked about the idea of the possibility of corrupting the system once it all becomes electronic or digitalized.”
Fundamentally, Paul believes this election should foster confidence in the system, and by not allowing the President to pursue his legal options, Democrats and the media were disenfranchising voters who just want the process to play out.
“If we don’t do that,” Paul warned. “We’re going to have four years of people feeling like the election was stolen, and you know, I’m not positive one way or the other, but I’d like to see the evidence, and I think the President has every right to ask that the votes be counted.”
Paul pushed back on Biden’s suggestions of a nationwide lockdown or mask mandate. He questioned the effectiveness of masks, which the CDC has said can stem the spread of the virus, which is surging across the country.
The Senator called the virus “insidious,” but added only a vaccine could put an end to it. He called the attempts at preventing the virus with economic shutdowns and social-distancing policies as “wrong-headed,” and “not based in science.”
“All of the data actually contradicts that man is doing anything to stop this virus at this point,” Paul said, adding the virus, nor an overreaction to it, can “last forever.”
Listen to the interview below
