60 minutes rewind
the 2020 presidential election had record-setting turnout with more than 145 million ballots cast
while president-elect joe biden collected more of those votes and news organizations have projected
him as the winner president trump has refused to concede he has called for recounts and filed
lawsuits questioning the validity of many of those ballots mostly the ones cast by mail all
over the country as kovid spiked again vote by mail ballots flooded tabulation centers other
ballots jammed street side drop boxes or were hand delivered to registrars and city clerks
what could have been chaos instead became an exercise in democracy we saw that firsthand in
five separate counties across the swing state of pennsylvania with its crucial 20 electoral
votes there we had some questions for the people responsible for counting the vote
president trump has said bad things happen in philadelphia are bad things happening
in philadelphia in the birthplace of our republic counting votes is not a bad thing
counting votes cast on or before election day by eligible voters is not corruption it is not
cheating it is democracy al schmidt is one of three commissioners who run elections
in philadelphia and the lone republican there really should not be a disagreement regardless
of party affiliation when we're talking about counting votes cast on or before election day
by eligible voters it's not a very controversial thing or at least it shouldn't be but yet it is
unfortunately yes and we've done in the past we first met commissioner schmidt back in september
with the country in the grip of the pandemic schmidt was expecting a flood of mail-in ballots
when you have half of your voters vote by mail and urging patients you will not know the outcome on
election night he couldn't have been more right the flood became a deluge 360 000 mail-in ballots
poured in in philadelphia that was more than all the mail-in votes in the state in 2016.
more than 90 percent were from democrats as those ballots were counted in the convention center in
philadelphia this past week president trump's initial lead in pennsylvania slowly was chipped
away on wednesday with hundreds of thousands of votes still to count president trump tweeted he
had won the state his campaign and party started filing lawsuits claiming voting irregularities and
fraud especially in philadelphia we are going to file suit in pennsylvania the president's son eric
and rudy giuliani rushed to philadelphia to assert with great urgency but no evidence that democracy
itself was under attack this is absolute fraud we've seen it in philadelphia before by the end
of the week with former vice president joe biden inching ahead in the vote count the number of
trump campaign and gop lawsuits hit double digits in pennsylvania most aimed at disrupting the count
pennsylvania is living up to its reputation as a crucial battleground in presidential elections
in 2016 donald trump beat hillary clinton here by less than one percent of the vote each ballot
must be counted with a similar edge over president trump news organizations on
saturday projected former vice president joe biden had won pennsylvania and the presidency
spontaneous celebrations broke out in philadelphia and across the country still
the trump campaign is going to court to challenge the validity of the vote
in pennsylvania and other battleground states obviously he's not he's not going to concede
the president's personal attorney rudy giuliani said he'll start filing lawsuits monday i don't
know if there's enough evidence to set aside the entire election certainly not around the
country maybe in pennsylvania the stakes are high and passions were high all week
thursday two virginia men found with weapons and ammunition in their car but no gun permit
were arrested outside the convention center inside republican commissioner schmidt his
fellow election board members and about 200 city employees are continuing to work
they'll be counting provisional ballots for at least another week from the inside looking out it
feels all very deranged deranged at the end of the day we are counting eligible votes cast by voters
the controversy surrounding it is something i don't understand it's people making accusations
that we wouldn't count those votes or people are adding fraudulent votes or um just coming up with
just all sorts of crazy stuff accusations like you are cheating yes you are manipulating the vote yes
or calls to our offices reminding us that um this is what the second amendment is for people like
us you're getting calls like that yes that's a not-so-veiled death threat yes for counting votes
in a democracy the election here had been running smoothly 60 minutes dropped in on five pivotal
counties northampton in the northeast voted twice for barack obama then flipped to donald
trump in 2016. we saw long lines of voters there waiting patiently to cast ballots on election day
in neighboring lucerne county we saw orderly vote counting under the watchful gaze of party
poll watchers certified by the state it was the same in the affluent suburbs around philadelphia
you are allowed in there pat paprik chair of the bucks county gop is a proud partisan but when it
comes to running clean elections she told us she's bipartisan we may like different candidates but
we want the process to be fair and i think we're working very hard in our county and i'm very very
proud of our commissioners our board we're all working together to make sure the voters can vote
democrats and republicans absolutely but that spirit of cooperation only goes so far
the number of republican court cases keeps growing one of the fiercest concerns poll watchers
the trump campaign is in pennsylvania courts alleging their observers can't get close enough to
see what's going on president trump railed about that in his speech thursday night in philadelphia
observers have been kept far away very far away so far that people are using binoculars to try and
see and there's been tremendous problems caused it is reckless and disappointing that there are some
on the outside who either don't know what's going on or don't care to know what's going on who are
lying about what's happening here in pennsylvania democrat josh shapiro is pennsylvania's attorney
general he won reelection this past week he's defending the state against republican lawsuits
he calls frivolous they were asking for two things bill number one to stop the count and number two
to allow their watchers to get closer to where the envelopes were being opened and scanned
on the first issue being able to stop the count they failed and on the second thing an agreement
was reached to move these poll watchers from roughly 10 feet away to roughly six feet away
no material change whatsoever the president and and his campaign
have said there are many irregularities here in pennsylvania let me break this down for you
each campaign had observers in the room while the ballots were being counted in addition to that
even if you're not a certified watcher you can turn on the live stream and watch it on tv and
keep an eye on the activity if you'd like you heard the president's speech on thursday night
he was claiming that the election is being stolen from him donald trump can say whatever he wants
but we just had an election an election that was secure an election where the votes are tallied
and a proper winner will be certified based not on the words of president trump but the votes of
the american people so get in line stay in line because it's all on the line pennsylvania state
representative malcolm kenyatta spent election day urging voters to get to the polls the democrat
represents a predominantly black district in north philadelphia i think about the people who
died i mean literally died and bled so every single person could vote in this country
he says the trump campaign's attempt to stop the count smacks of voter suppression they're trying
to steal an election by not having every vote count and in an election if you think you're going
to win you don't try to stop the counting you want every vote counted we're going to count every
single vote and all they can do is what they've done to try to throw sand in the gears to try to
make the process as slow as possible and then fill that time of delay with conspiracy theories and
and nonsense so what do you think of this now that the trump campaign is going to court
complaining about these delays this is what the president does he wants to create confusion and
chaos and then say oh my god there's so much confusion in chaos and then i say well pick
up a mirror of course there's confusion in chaos you created it the story will continue after this
i've been doing this a long time this is the type of litigation strategy where you
throw the kitchen sink at the wall and see what sticks ben ginsburg is a republican
attorney who has spent almost four decades immersed in election law
during the florida recount in 2000 he helped spearhead the controversial legal strategy
that won the presidency for george w bush he says this is no florida 2000 and calls
president trump's strategy incoherent what is this litigation designed to do that on the one hand
it's lawyers reacting to a client who is disjointed and unhinged and not terribly accepting
of defeat and on the other extreme this could be an instance of trying to slow down counts in
individual states in the hopes that those states don't complete their job of certifying election
results in time for the electoral college to meet and then he would go back to something else he's
talked about which is telling legislators to go and vote trump slates even in states that were won
by biden ginsburg a lifelong republican hopes it doesn't come to that if you could
get the ear of the president what would you say to him sir you need to take a step back
look at the results it is a democracy it is a country that's been very good to you
and you need to respect the institutions and the greatest institution of all is our elections that
lead to the peaceful transfer of power and you cannot be destructive of that saturday night
now president-elect joe biden told voters the democratic process is working we've won
with the most votes ever cast from presidential ticket in the history of the nation 74 million
not far from independence hall the counting of provisional mail-in and military ballots continues
for republican election commissioner al schmidt each ballot is a precious reminder of
what's at stake the real damage is not who wins and who loses or who gets elected or not
the real damage i think is how we all react to this process
so that at the end of the day we all have confidence that all the voices are heard
and win or lose these are the people that we the people have uh elected to represent us