Suggested Biden Speech After the Electoral College Meets

Fellow Americans, we have reached the end of a very contentious presidential election at a time we are also dealing with the devastating health and economic effects of a world -wide pandemic.

Since the disease came to our country earlier this year from China, we have made great progress in understanding how this disease is transmitted, we have built the most extensive and robust testing system in the world, we have developed therapeutic drugs to treat the disease and built capacity to meet the needs of hospitals and doctors for the full range of equipment needed. In an incredibly short time frame for such things, we now have several vaccines that will essentially eliminate the Covid pandemic as a pandemic as more and more people are inoculated.

This disease will continue to exist around the world but its effects will be much reduced both in extent and in lethality. The technology behind these vaccines also show huge promise not only for dealing with this virus the science behind these vaccines have great promise for dealing with other virus -caused diseases as well.

However, the economic consequences to our nation, our people and our businesses have been severe.  I am certain we will recover economically though the process will take time and money. I will work closely with the Congress to enact the necessary legislation to support our recovery and get all of our citizens back to productive work.

With that said, what disturbs me equally as much is that we are a sharply divided nation on a number of issues. In this recent election, the American people expressed that division by electing a President from the Democrat Party and, at the same time, voting for the Republicans to keep the Senate and reducing the Democrat Party control of the House. This is the case based on what we know now, but still to be confirmed by a few House races still not called and runoff races for two Senate seats in Georgia.

In this election, we had more people voting for president than at any election in history – over 150 million people. Seventy million Americans voted for Mr. Trump – more than any previous presidential winner. Because of the pandemic, we had more mail-in ballots by tens of millions than ever before.  This was a new process for many states and a massive difference in scale for all states – even those that had used mail-in ballots in the past.

I believe all states tried their best but the sheer numbers lead to a perception that mail-in balloting did create a system in which fraud could be conducted more easily, the extent to which is not fully known.

There were a number of irregularities in various cities and states around the country, problems with lost and damaged ballots, last minute changes in procedures and timing, and alarming instances of outright fraudulent votes and procedures.  As a result, many of my fellow Americans believe the election was stolen and I will not be a legitimate president.

I remember Democrats felt the same way when Mr. Trump was elected over Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Bush over Mr. Gore.  Many Democrats spent four years describing Mr. Trump as illegitimate and tried to develop proof he was.  Fortunately for the nation, that effort did prove unsuccessful.

In all these cases, the legality of the election, and the legitimacy of the result was contested in the courts and judicial decisions were reached. That has been the case in this election as well, the Electoral College has voted and the cases before the court resolved.

Nonetheless, this is not only a legal matter; tens of millions of fellow Americans who voted for Mr. Trump in this election believe the election was simply not fair.

I understand those concerns and those feelings. Here is what is clear to me:

• The election systems in many states do have too many opportunities for fraudulent activity to occur. And, certainly, we know some fraud did occur. There is no denying that.

• Some jurisdictions did not follow their own legally defined processes and that lead to the appearance, and perhaps the reality, of more fraud.

• We simply do not know if the level and amount of fraud was sufficient to have changed the outcome. Most people think not, but any level of irregularity, any mis-handling of votes, any improper validation of signature and dates is simply unacceptable.

• Voter roles are not maintained with the rigor and decisiveness needed to ensure all votes cast are legal ones; voter rolls should not contain so many people who moved or even died.

This level of doubt in peoples’ minds is not good for this country and must stop.  This must be the last election in which there can be any reasonable concern about the fairness of the process and the outcome of the vote.

Accordingly, my first act as President will be to meet with Mitch McConnel as presumptive Senate Majority leader to form a commission of five Senators – three Republican and two Democrats, with the Republican acting as Chair of this committee. Any support this committee needs from the executive branch, they will have.

I will ask that committee to:

1. Investigate thoroughly the extent of fraud in each state in this election as quickly and as accurately as possible – and report the results to the American people.
2. Refer to the Department of Justice any necessary criminal activity for investigation and ultimate prosecution.

3. Identify weaknesses and points of vulnerability in the various state systems.

4. Recommend needed changes in registration, verification and voting processes. Voting processes are ultimately a state matter; we all know that, but we can and will develop national standards and we will certify whether state systems are adhering to those standards.

5. Identify any needed legislation and funding to put in place their recommendations

For these tasks, this Commission may well draw on the work of the Commission on Federal Election Reform conducted in 2004 and assess which recommendations made then were not followed in this election.

My oath of office will be to protect and defend our Constitution. That begins with making sure that our voting systems are ones that every American can have confidence in – ones in which every American who is legally entitled to vote can do so easily and safely and that no one not allowed legally to vote can or does vote.

Thank you.