Dear Editor,
Counting of votes is continuing in America, and that process would take several more days to be completed. There could also be automatic or court-ordered recounts that would take up to a week. Nevertheless, looking at the voting trends, it appears clear to me that the Democratic challenger Joe Biden has won.
The declaration of a winner in several states may be held up as military ballots come in. This would take several days for the overseas ballots to come in.
As I forecast before voting day on November 3, after analyzing opinion polls, and as I examined voting returns from the counting on Tuesday evening, I concluded that Biden would win the Presidency. On three different seminars before the election, I was asked who would win, and I replied Biden; and right after the voting, I was asked again who would win, and I responded, “Biden”.
I was also asked who would be better for Guyana and India. My response was that it does not matter who wins the Presidency, US-Guyana and US-India relations would not be adversely impacted. Guyanese and Indian nationals who favoured Trump were not pleased with my response, and a few were very hostile. Guyanese-American Trump supporters were happy on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, but started becoming sour as numbers changed, closing the gap between Trump and Biden, whose Guyanese supporters are elated.
My analysis of the 2020 election is not clouded by my support or campaigning for Biden. It is based on objective analyses of polls and on my own conversations with voters. I am professional and non-partisan. Like almost all other pollsters, I was wrong in 2016 when I accepted the polls that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidency. She did win the popular vote by almost 3M votes, but lost to Donald Trump in the Electoral College.
For 2020, after examining the counting trends on Tuesday evening and all day on Wednesday, although Trump led in most battleground states, I told inquiring minds that Biden would win the Presidency based on the mailed-in ballots. The gap between the two contenders was not too huge to overcome once the mailed-in ballots were counted. Mailed-in ballots tend to be heavily Democratic, while in-person ballots tend to be heavily Republican. Mailed-in ballots are usually counted last, after election day voting.
Thus, Biden’s numbers kept rising after Tuesday, when the mailed-in ballots were being counted. On Wednesday evening, I told many people I spoke with in India, Guyana, America, Canada, UK, and around the Caribbean that Biden would win the Presidency. Although many insisted it was over for Biden, I insisted that Biden had a very good chance of overtaking Trump once the counting of mailed-in votes began.
And sure enough, that is exactly what has happened. Except for North Carolina, which is ‘up in the air’, Biden should win all of the undeclared battleground states. However, a declaration would take some days, because military ballots from overseas would still have to come in and be counted. The deadline for those ballots varies until next Thursday, but they would have to be postmarked latest on November 3.
I published several such articles on the ICDN website as well as in the newspapers in Guyana and the West Indian website, explaining why Biden would win based on voting trends of the mailed-in ballots.
President Trump could go to court to challenge the results and demand recounts – and there should be a recount in states with close outcomes – but the numbers won’t change much. There is no evidence of fraud, Biden has won convincingly. The Supreme Court won’t help him. In fact, the Supreme Court may reject his appeal. The court won’t entertain requests to throw out ballots or stop counts. Trump has lost.
The only issue I have is that mailed-in ballots should have been delivered or reached counting sites by Tuesday evening at close of voting. (I will pen a piece why Biden/Harris would be better for India, Guyana and the globe).
Yours truly,
Dr Vishnu Bisram
