The Trump administration has been working hard to deny President-elect Joe Biden’s projected win of the general election. Since poll workers started counting votes, President Donald Trump has accused Democrats of submitting illegal ballots in virtually every way possible. 

His claims, however, have little to no evidence to back them up.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” said Trump at a Nov. 5 press conference at the White House.

He also cited poll workers obstructing the view inside Michigan ballot-counting locations with pieces of cardboard as evidence of illegal activity. He said this blocked “observers” who were meant to be there from watching the counting. 

This was disproven by FactCheck.org, an organization that examines the validity of politicians’ claims. It is true that civilians were blocked from watching the count, but observers hired by the state were allowed to witness the tallying of votes. 

Trump then accused Pennsylvania and Georgia of pushing back on providing ballot-counting locations with observers, until a judge ordered them to allow poll watchers to be present. 

During the press conference, Trump also insisted that Detroit received ballots at 4 a.m. on Nov. 4, despite polls having been closed for eight hours. 

“The final batch did not arrive until four in the morning. And even though the polls closed at 8 p.m., so they brought it in … and nobody knew where they came from,” he said. 

This, though, was also disproven by FactCheck. The suitcase people thought to be full of illegal ballots actually stored camera equipment for media photographers. 

Despite many claims that absentee ballots would create fraud, a Washington Post analysis found that only 372 cases were possibly found out of the 14.6 million votes cast in 2016 and 2018 combined.

The most obviously baseless protest was the “stop the count” movement. Many Trump supporters stood outside of various ballot-counting locations in Arizona and Michigan chanting “stop the count.” They thought any ballots counted after Election Day were illegal and therefore did not count them, according to Business Insider. This escalated when the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan on Nov. 3 asking poll workers to halt counting the ballots. 

It is common, however, for ballots to be counted far after Election Day. Federal election laws allow for ballots to be counted up to a month after Super Tuesday. This is specifically due to absentee ballots, which increased substantially this election due to COVID-19. 

Absentee ballots were primarily in favor of Biden since Trump used fearmongering to prevent his supporters from using mail-in voting. 

“The fraud and abuse will be an embarrassment to our country,” Trump tweeted about absentee voting in August.

Now, Trump seems to be confused and upset that mail-in voting has been to Biden’s benefit, citing this as evidence that illegal voting occurred. 

“It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided,” Trump said at the press conference. 

His rhetoric against mail-in ballots would inevitably work against him, which he should have predicted. Instead, Biden promoted absentee voting, telling constituents that it is a safer form of voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in his projected victory.

Trump has refused to concede and is allowing the election to carry on based on illogical accusations of illegal activity and voter fraud. He is grasping at straws attempting to stay in office. His administration should concede, but it is becoming more unlikely by the day that America will witness a smooth transition of power.