What's the rush, let's get it right

[dan_s]

While all major broadcast and cable news outlets have declared former Vice President Joe Biden the 46th president of the United States, Newsmax has not.

We are doing so for good and prudent reasons.

This was an extremely close election in which one of the contestants, President Donald Trump, is challenging the results in as many as five states, in races that are as close as 1% or less.

Under such circumstances, it is Newsmax's view that the voters and their respective states should decide the election, not media companies.

Consider that in Arizona, Biden brought home 49.40% of the vote to Trump's 49.08%, a difference of 0.32%.

Biden also was declared the winner in Georgia by taking 49.52% of the vote to the president's 49.24%, a difference of just 0.28%.

And Tuesday, one Georgia county discovered an additional 2,600 votes that were yet to be counted, with an apparent strong majority going for Trump.

Biden also won Wisconsin by carrying 49.57% of the vote to Trump's 48.95%, a difference of 0.62%.

Finally, Biden took Pennsylvania by wooing 49.89% of the electorate to Trump's 48.96%, a difference of 0.93%.

Other disputed battleground states include Nevada, where Biden was declared the winner carrying 50.15% of the vote to Trump's 47.58%, and Michigan, where Biden reportedly won 50.56% of the vote to the president's 47.91%.

ABC News projected Saturday that when the Electoral College meets Dec. 14, Biden will be awarded 306 electoral votes to the president's 232. Of those states having less than one percentage point in difference:

Arizona has 11 electoral votes
Georgia has 16 electoral votes
Wisconsin has 10 electoral votes
Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes
The president would need to flip states totaling at least 37 electoral votes for an outright win.

However, if he reverses the outcomes in Georgia and Pennsylvania, that would bring the candidates to a tie at 269 each.

In that event, the election would be determined by the U.S. House of Representatives when the new Congress meets in early January.

Professor Alan Dershowitz sees another possible scenario where neither Biden nor Trump wins more than 269 electoral votes.

This could happen if a particular state fails to certify its electors and they do not vote at the Electoral College in December.

Pennsylvania is ripe for this type of challenge.

There have been clear-cut examples of voting irregularities. State authorities took clear liberties with their mail-in ballots and may have violated the law.

For example, Republicans allege that in several counties Democrats blocked their ability to actually observe and monitor the initial counting of mail-in ballots.

And, across several contested states, we saw strange patterns related to mail-in ballots.

Last week, John Solomon's Just the News reported that states were not rejecting invalid mail-in ballots at the same rates they did in the 2016 election.

In 2016, Georgia had a rejection rate of faulty ballots — with no signature, no signature match, damaged ballots, etc. — of over 6%. In 2020, it was just 0.2%.

In Pennsylvania, 2016 saw a rejection rate of 1%, this year it was only 0.3%. Michigan fell from a 0.5% rejection rate to a 0.1%.

This is not proof of vote fraud, but it is highly suggestive of vote manipulation.

Put another way, if rejection rates in 2020 were consistent with 2016, Trump would have easily won this election.

Trump's team also raised issues related to the use of software and voting machines provided by Dominion Voting Systems.

Dominion's products are used by some 2,000 jurisdictions in 30 states, and early on, problems were discovered in Michigan and Georgia.

Trump legal team coordinator Rudy Giuliani discussed those issues during his appearance on WABC's "The Cats Roundtable.

"Curiously, in the very, very close states where Trump lost by less than 1%, it's those machines that are being used," Giuliani said. "Nevada, Michigan, and Georgia use those machines. Those machines should not be used in any American election. Again, they're foreign machines.

On Nov. 7, ABC, NBC, CNN, and Fox News all projected that Biden had accumulated the 270 electoral votes necessary for victory. Although the president had not conceded the election, Biden took his cue from the media and declared victory that same day.

"I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris," Biden said in a statement.

Since Nov. 10, Biden has made a number of brief announcements in front of signage stating "Office of the President Elect," even though the Electoral College won't meet to decide who that person will be until Dec. 14.

We are witnessing some dangerous presumptions. The media should not be determining the next president.

In a contested race, no candidate should assume an office for which they were not officially declared.

In the 2000 election, Democrat Al Gore contested the presidential race in Florida.

No media organization made a projection of the winner until the race had been certified, which took until December.

No media demanded Gore concede.

Today Trump is exercising his legal right to challenge the results.

He should be allowed to do so.

Newsmax will await the state certifications. If they give a clear indication of the winner, we will accept those results and project a winner, whether that's Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

We strongly believe that voters decide election in America. The way it used to be.

Michael Dorstewitz contributed to this article.