'I will stand my ground': Election officials are prepared for attempts to 'find' votes

When Donald Trump lost Georgia by just under 12,000 votes in 2020, he went to the two people with the most power over the state’s elections — the governor and the secretary of state — and asked for help overturning the results.

He asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to help him “find 11,780 votes,” but Raffensperger refused. Then he asked Gov. Brian Kemp , another Republican, to order an audit and convene the state legislature so they could hand the state’s electoral votes to him. Kemp also resisted.

Heading into a tight Nov. 5 election , Trump in September claimed without evidence that Democrats are "cheating," laying the groundwork to challenge the results again if he loses. During a debate in June, Trump twice avoided directly answering if he would accept the result's of this year's election, eventually saying he would do so only "If it’s a fair and legal and good election."

But Trump would be unlikely to find state officials willing to try to block their state's electoral votes from going to Vice President Kamala Harris. Democrats have gained power in major swing states, and the Republicans leading states that Harris could win have given no indication that they would overturn the election. In fact, several explicitly said they won't do so.

Representatives of the Republican governors of New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia − all states leaning toward Harris in polls − told USA TODAY they intend to certify the results regardless of the winner. And top election officials in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and North Carolina also said they wouldn't be swayed.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is a moderate Republican who has frequently criticized Trump, but also said he is voting for the former president . Sununu's spokesperson, Brandon Pratt, noted the election was certified easily in 2020.

“Governor Sununu shares Granite Staters' faith in our elections and the extraordinary work done by local election officials and expects this year to be no different," Pratt said.

Federal law requires governors to create documents called certificates of ascertainment that begin the process of convening the Electoral College to vote for president and vice president. Secretaries of state, or another official depending on the state, compile election results from local and county governments so the winner can be declared.

State officials have shown they are unlikely to bend to pressure to change election results. Republicans like Raffensperger and Kemp were unwilling to help Trump in 2020. And if they did in the future, a court might over-rule them.

“No one I’ve ever encountered who’s involved with election administration like this would give in to threats or intimidation,” Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, told USA TODAY. Schmidt previously swatted off pressure to interfere with the 2020 election while a local official in Philadelphia, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro appointed him to his current post.

"Anyone involved in elections is pursuing their responsibilities professionally, and no amount of pressure or coercion would interfere in that in any way," Schmidt said.

The Republican National Committee responded to USA TODAY’s questions for the Trump campaign. "President Trump's election integrity effort is dedicated to protecting every legal vote, mitigating threats to the voting process, and securing the election,” said Claire Zunk, the party’s election integrity spokesperson.

Keeping up with Election 2024? Sign up for USA TODAY's On Politics newsletter.

Why governors are unlikely to help Trump overturn an election

Democrats hold the governor’s seat in five of the seven key swing states: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Kemp is the governor of Georgia, and Republican Joe Lombardo has been Nevada’s governor since 2023.

Lombardo is a longtime law enforcement officer and former sheriff of Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. Trump endorsed Lombardo for governor, and Lombardo endorsed Trump for president earlier this year. But Lombardo also stood next to Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar to enact a law to protect election workers.

“I haven't seen any indication from Governor Lombardo that he would reject the results as certified by the secretary,” said Jonathan Diaz, the voting advocacy director for Campaign Legal Center. “It's not to say that Trump won't try.” Lombardo's staff did not respond to multiple inquiries for comment.

There are four other Republican governors likely to be responsible for creating certificates of ascertainment to award Electoral College votes to Harris — Nebraska, New Hampshire, Vermont and Virginia — but none of them have shown an inclination to change the outcome of an election.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said his state could go for Trump despite polls showing Harris ahead by an average of 7 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight. He also has been an outspoken advocate for election integrity. Nonetheless, his office was clear that he would certify Virginia's results.

“Governor Youngkin will fulfill his responsibility of signing the certificate of ascertainment, as mandated by federal law," Youngkin's press secretary Christian Martinez said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Amanda Wheeler, a spokesperson for Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, said he would “absolutely fulfill his duty to certify election results, regardless of who is victorious in Vermont. This is likely not surprising as he has condemned acts of election interference and politically motivated violence in the past.”

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, whose staff did not respond to multiple requests for comment, will be responsible for finalizing an electoral vote in the state’s blue-leaning Second Congressional District. He backed an effort change the state’s system so it doesn’t award that electoral vote separately, but it failed last month , and would not affect the 2024 election unless it happened before Nov. 5.

“I can’t imagine that executives in New Hampshire and Nebraska will not do their duty even if they’re not thrilled with the results,” said David Becker, the founder of Center for Election Innovation & Research a nonpartisan nonprofit that works with election officials to ensure election security. “Same with Virginia.”

Why secretaries of state will stand in the way of election interference

The top election officials in three swing states — Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada — are elected Democrats. Wisconsin’s top election official, Meagan Wolfe, is a nonpartisan appointee Trump asked Republicans to impeach, in part over false and misleading claims of the 2020 election. The Republican secretaries of state in Pennsylvania and Georgia, Schmidt and Raffensperger, also were tested in 2020.

"For the last four-plus years there have been a lot of political attempts to try to sway me, and I’ve stood strong through all of those, and I have no intent to stop," Wolfe told USA TODAY. She said her job "all day every day is to recognize political pressure or influence for what it is and do my job as an election official without giving deference to that."

Raffensperger told USA TODAY he expects pressure “from political advocates on both sides of the aisle. They’re fully vested in their candidates.” He added, “I think I’ve shown that I will stand my ground. I’ll follow the law. I’ll follow the Constitution. I’ll do my job.”

A grand jury in Georgia indicted Trump and more than a dozen other people for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election there. Trump's call to Raffensperger was a key part of the indictment.

Karen Brinson Bell, the nonpartisan executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told USA TODAY that if someone called her up and told her to find votes, she would say, “We’ve counted the ballots. There are no votes to be found.”

After the Board of Elections signs off, Elaine Marshall, North Carolina's Democratic secretary of state, certifies the results to the governor. Then she convenes the Electoral College. "If I were to get a call about switching electors, I mean, I wouldn’t do it," she said. "There is no authority for that. And it’s just not going to happen on my watch."

In New Hampshire, Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan historically sends a letter to the five-member executive council to certify the presidential election, according to Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on the five-member council.  She said she isn't concerned about the council doing its job.

Susan Beals, the chief election official for Virginia, said in a statement that certification of the election is a “ministerial duty,” a legal term that means officials can’t decline to do it for subjective reasons. The Virginia State Board of Elections, which has three Republicans and two Democrats, said in a statement that it would “fulfill its responsibility to certify the results of the 2024 November general election.”

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen, also a Republican, declined an interview with USA TODAY for this story, and his staff did not provide a comment.

Why governors and secretaries of state are so important

In most states, secretaries of state collect election results from local or county governments and add the numbers together before certifying the presidential election winner and sending the information to the governor. In several states, a person with a different title or a board perform this task.

When governors receive the election results, they use the information to create documents declaring how many votes each candidate for president received. These are called certificates of ascertainment, and governors are required to create them under the 2022 federal law called the Electoral Count Reform Act.

The documents also list the names of the people who will represent the state in the Electoral College, names that are provided by the party whose candidate won. The Electoral College meets to cast votes on Dec. 17. The votes and the certificates are sent to Congress to count the votes on Jan. 6.

If the process were not completed — something that has never happened before — the Electoral College votes would not be sent to Congress. The state’s electoral votes would then be removed from the total Electoral College votes needed to win, meaning the number of Electoral College votes up for grabs would drop from 538, and the number of Electoral College votes a presidential candidate needed to win the election would be only a majority of the remaining votes.

For example, if a state with 10 electoral votes did not send its certificates of ascertainment to Congress, those would not be counted, and a candidate would only have to win 265 electoral votes in order to become president, instead of the usual threshold of 270.

The 2020 playbook won’t work

Between governors and secretaries of state likely to block any efforts to reverse an outcome, a Supreme Court decision that limits state legislatures' power in federal elections, and increased public awareness, Trump’s 2020 path to overturning an election has all but whittled away.

“The question isn’t whether or not county and state officials are going to be pressured,” Becker said. “In virtually all the states that Harris wins, if Trump loses, I think that’s a near certainty."

Rex Van Middlesworth, a fellow with the Harvard Advanced Leadership Institute who is one of the nation’s leading experts on the Electoral Count Reform Act, said there is concern that local clerks might try to hold up certification, but that won’t work either.

“The state governments, campaigns, and the pro-democracy organizations know where the trouble spots are, and I think they’ll be prepared,” he said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'I will stand my ground': Election officials are prepared for attempts to 'find' votes