Among its barrage of arbitrary new policy decrees in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election, Twitter offered a list of approved sites that it would allow to call states for a particular candidate.
We’ll consider a result official when announced by a state election official, or when calls are made by at least two of the below national news outlets that have dedicated, independent election decision desks:@ABC@AP@CBSNews@CNN@DecisionDeskHQ@FoxNews@NBCNews
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 2, 2020
The list included several left-skewed outlets that have overtly functioned as cheerleaders for Democrat Joe Biden and routinely downplayed, without justification, widespread concerns over potential vote fraud.
However, it included only one—Fox News—that was likely to take a more skeptical approach if Biden attempts to prematurely declare victory in tightly contested battleground states.
The social-media publisher will require a consensus of at least two outlets to declare a state or else for a state election official to call the outcome.
But it appears increasingly clear that the final battle for votes will play out in one of several blue-led states where election officials have scrambled to change voting rules and already have taken a largely antagonistic stance against Trump.
In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota—three key tossup states that could play a deciding factor—governors have pushed hard to relax election-integrity laws.
Most egregious among these is Pennsylvania, in which the Democrat-led state Supreme Court declared the election officials could accept ballots until three days after the election even if they were not clearly postmarked and the signatures did not match those on file.
The US Supreme Court refused to overturn an appeal on the controversial measures, meaning it is likely to be fought out in court after the election.
Nonetheless, it’s feasible that biased outlets might attempt to call the state in Biden’s favor before inevitable legal challenges by election watchdogs and the state’s Republican legislature have fully determined the outcome.
Pennsylvania’s Democrat attorney general, who has spearheaded many of the state’s efforts to undermine election laws amid the pandemic, appeared ready to take a victory lap on Monday.
If all the votes are added up in PA, Trump is going to lose. That’s why he’s working overtime to subtract as many votes as possible from this process.
For the record, he’s 0-6 against us in court. We’ve protected voting rights. Now, ignore the noise—vote!https://t.co/mN8t6TDud7
— Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) October 31, 2020
But conservatives, including Fox News host Mark Levin, denounced the corrupt effort.
“The attorney general of Pennsylvania is a left-wing POS, who is trying to set the stage to claim a Trump win in PA is illegitimate,” Levin wrote on Parler.
“He has done all he can to undermine existing state law to help his buddy Biden,” Levin continued. “Obviously, if PA was in the bag for the Democrats, Biden wouldn’t be leaving his basement.”
