After Trump’s call to stop counting, Blunt says states must count every legal vote
Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, in what amounts to an admonishment of President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that states should ensure they count every legal vote in the 2020 election.
“We have set all-time records for voter participation. Every vote that was legally cast needs to be counted. America will once again serve as an example to the world,” Blunt, a Republican, said in a carefully worded statement.
While the comment should be common sense, Blunt’s words could be politically important as the presidential election remains undecided between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Blunt, who also praised Trump’s “unbelievable energy and dedication” during the campaign, is a member of the Senate GOP leadership and chairs the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees election law. A former Missouri secretary of state, he has long championed the right of states to set their own election policies without federal overreach.
In an extraordinary appearance in the White House East Room around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Trump demanded that election officials in battleground states stop counting votes.
“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments ignore the fact that even in states with clear winners in the presidential race, ballots will continue to be counted over the next several weeks.
Kansas, for example, will accept mail ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 through Friday and won’t begin counting thousands of provisional ballots until next week.
As of Wednesday morning, Kansas had more than 50,000 mail ballots that had yet to be returned.
While these ballots won’t change the results in the presidential race — the state went for Trump by double digits — they could have major consequences for close down-ballot races.
Trump’s campaign said Wednesday it would sue to prevent Michigan and Pennsylvania in an effort to stop those states from counting late-arriving ballots under similar polices.
Despite Trump’s call for the cessation of counting, his campaign Wednesday afternoon said that it would pursue a recount in Wisconsin after the state was won by Biden.
Blunt is the only current senator from the Kansas City area to respond directly to Trump’s demands.
Retiring Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ office declined to comment. Missouri Republican Josh Hawley’s office did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls.
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran’s office did not directly answer a question about Trump’s comments, but instead provided audio of the senator talking to reporters in Kansas about his optimism that Republicans would maintain control of the Senate after all remaining votes are counted.
Senator-elect Roger Marshall, a Republican who will succeed Roberts in representing Kansas, said Wednesday morning that he did not see Trump’s comments.
“But of course i want every legal ballot, rightful ballot, counted,” said Marshall, currently a member of the House. “But we also need people to follow the rules. … Let’s stick with whatever the rules are. I hate it when people change votes in the middle of the ballgame.”
Marshall’s comments point to the legal fights that could put the winner of the election in doubt for several weeks as the two campaigns argue in court about the legality of mail ballot policies enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Postal Service delays.
After pulling ahead in Michigan, Biden appeared to be inching closer to the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College as counting continued in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 5:13 PM.
