Dr. John Geer
Election expert and Vanderbilt’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Dr. John Geer told members of the Chattanooga Rotary Club on Thursday that there is no historical reason for expecting every vote to be received and counted on a single day.
“This country has never simply had an election day where votes have been cast on a particular day and then counted on that day,” Dr. Geer said.
“That has never happened.”
As votes are still being tallied in key swing states like Georgia to the south, Pennsylvania to the north, and Nevada to the west in the presidential election, Dr. Geer told the club he believed Democratic nominee Joe Biden will most likely become president as mail-in ballots are being counted.
“I think there’s about 10 percent of the ballots across the country yet to be counted,” Dr. Geer said. “Although we are focusing on the battleground states, and those will probably increase Biden’s popular vote.”
Dr. Geer pushed back against the notion of mail-in ballots being susceptible to fraud. While the majority of mail-in ballots are likely votes for Mr. Biden in the presidential election, that has nothing to do with fraud and is instead indicative of the demographic of voters who utilize that form of voting, he said.
“There’s just very little evidence of voter fraud in mail-in ballots, or no evidence at all,” Dr. Geer said. “But instead because we know mail-in ballots are primarily coming from Democrats, that people don’t like that outcome and they’ll make claims. It’s like claiming voting should only be on election day. It’s just not historically close to the truth.”
“But of course, in this environment, my statement will be seen by some as partisan. And it’s not designed to be partisan. We want to have the votes counted and there’s no reason to believe those votes are subject to corruption.”
But while it appears Joe Biden will win the presidency, Dr. Geer told the Rotary Club members the so-called “Blue Wave” never materialized for the Democratic Party.
“You can’t argue it was a Blue Wave,” Dr. Geer said. “Biden won narrowly, but the House did not become more blue, and it looks like the Senate is staying red. Even if Biden gets 52 percent of the vote, that’s certainly a comfortable margin, but I don’t think you can read too much into it.”
Some Rotarians wondered why polls predicted such a “Blue Wave” never materialized, and how polling was off by that much. Dr. Geer answered their questions with a question of his own, and said such factors as minority voters supporting Trump in higher numbers than expected are things needing to be studied in the future.
“I just haven’t’ had a chance to look at the polls, and there were some surprising things that happened,” Dr. Geer said. “Black men voted in higher numbers for Trump, as did Hispanic men. Many had Biden with an eight-point lead, and he may end up with a four-point lead? So what is driving that?”
Because the Senate will remain Republican-controlled, Dr. Geer predicted Biden and the Democratic Party will have difficulty passing legislation through that part of Congress. But the Vanderbilt professor also said Mr. Biden’s history in the Senate may give him an advantage when dealing with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
“Biden will face a lot of pressure from the left to get through progressive policies that now will not happen,” Dr. Geer said. “But it’s also true Biden is a creature of the Senate, knows how it works, and has a relationship with Mitch McConnell. How can that be played with great effect?”
But before any of this happens, Mr. Biden will need his 270 or so electoral votes certified. Dr. Geer told the club members a recount usually only changes the vote by about 500, so even a state as closely-contested as Wisconsin is almost certainly going to stay blue. And while Dr. Geer said the current president may try to slow the process, he predicted neither party will want to draw out the process.
“I suspect that one thing Trump wants to do is to delay anything being certified and muck around with the Electoral College that convenes in December,” Dr. Geer said. “I just don’t think it’s going to fly, because I don’t think the country or either party will stand for it. If the votes are counted, we want to be faithful to that.”
Dr. Geer said the increased voter turnout around the country was something that could only be seen as a positive for the nation.
“All indications said this election had more turnout than any election from the last 120 years,” Dr. Geer said. “From a patriotic point of view, I’m pretty proud of that, because America has always come out a bit short on the turnout compared to other countries.”
“I say this in a non-partisan way. I have faith in democracy, and I think the more people that vote, the results are better. We saw people vote and stay in really long lines, and that’s really impressive.”
However, he also told Rotary Club members the disintegration of media from what he called the monolithic structure of the 1960s to today’s more opinionated form of news has led to America’s political polarization. But for Dr. Geer, political leanings do not concern him nearly as much as America beginning to value what he called ideology over evidence.
“I do worry about most in this country is not people being on the left or right. I am afraid we have become untethered to evidence. It is absolutely the case that wearing masks and social distancing keeps people safer, and for people to deny it just makes no sense at all. My view is that we have to be tied to evidence, and if we’re tied to evidence rather than ideology, we’ll see polarization go away. Sometimes the right side of the spectrum is correct about an issue, sometimes it’s the left, and sometimes the solution is in the middle.”