GOV. CHARLIE BAKER criticized President Trump on Friday for suggesting there is some kind of national conspiracy going on related to the counting of votes across the country.
Trump has said he is being cheated out of a second term by “the corrupt voting apparatus of the states,” which is counting “illegal votes” that have reduced the size of his lead in a number of states.
Baker said Trump’s comments are not supported by the facts and are “damaging to democracy.”
He ticked off the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona where Democrats and Republicans either share power or Republicans control all the major elected offices in the state.
“We should count every vote and we are counting votes on a bipartisan basis,” Baker said at a State House press conference.
Jim Lyons, the chair of the state Republican Party, sent out a fundraising message on Thursday that said “it looks like the radical Democrats are threatening to STEAL this election.”
Lyons pointed to 140,000 Joe Biden votes “found” in Michigan on Wednesday and similar occurrences in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. “It’s suspicious that they never seem to find extra boxes of Republican ballots, isn’t it?” he asked.
Baker said every vote should be counted and the Trump and Biden sides should be able to pursue recounts and court cases as allowed by law. “We’re like in the seventh or eighth inning and at some point everybody’s got to get used to the idea that we have to move forward as a country,” Baker said. “We have the highest participation rate in our nation’s history in this election. We should be celebrating this.”