US presidential election: what are Donald Trump's legal options really?

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While Joe Biden has won two very important states, Michigan and Wisconsin, which he snatched from Donald Trump, as well as Arizona probably thanks to the mail-order votes more favorable to the Democrats, his rival is talking about a presidential election " stolen "and asks to recount ballots in Winsconsin, and blocking ballots in Pennsylvania.

Trump believes that bulletins "appeared" overnight and denounces fraud.

But for Steven R. Ekovich, specialist in American civilization, professor of political science at the American University of Paris and at Sciences Po, all this is more of a delegitimization maneuver than a legal process.

Are there any flaws in postal votes?

"No, no, no. Sometimes there are mistakes because people have marked their ballot incorrectly, but it's really tiny. So we can say right now that all of these results are reliable."

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Can Trump ask justice to suspend the recount in Pennsylvania?

"He cannot. A President of the United States cannot declare or stop a count. Let us not forget that the United States is a federal system. Each state has its laws, its way of organizing and of counting. ballots, to assign his / her electors. Ultimately, we can ask the legal authorities of a certain state to take legal steps, but we cannot declare and stop a count. This maneuver on the part of Trump, this is not really a legal step, it is a step of propaganda to try to delegitimize the whole procedure. No lawyer for the moment takes these legal steps seriously ".

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Can he ask to recount the votes in states where it is tight?

"It is possible, absolutely, because it falls within the legislation, within a legitimate legal framework. But it must be said that even in Wisconsin, where Biden leads by 20,000 votes, it is very rare, and not only in the Wisconsin by the way, that a candidate who leads by a margin of 20,000 loses after a recount.In the state of Wisconsin there have been recounts in the past, but when the difference was a hundred or less of a thousand votes. Professionals say if the margin of victory is well over 1000 votes, it's very, very unlikely that a recount will change anything. "

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What about the winner if we have to recount in a certain number of states?

"It might take a few more days. In Arizona, I think we're going to have results in 12 or 24 hours, probably also in two states, North Carolina and Georgia. What if Biden wins? at least two of those three states, he'll need Pennsylvania less. "

Can Donald Trump go to the Supreme Court as he says?

"Not likely not. Indeed, there was an election decided by the Supreme Court, that of 2000, where there was a dispute in the State of Florida between George W. Bush and Al Gore. But when the Supreme Court came, the US constitutionalists yelled because it was up to the Supreme Court of the State of Florida to decide, not the Federal Supreme Court. In any case, in these specific cases the margin of difference was a few hundreds of voices, not tens of thousands like now. "