U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, an ally of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, will not accept the results of the Nov. 5 election if they are “unfair,” he said on Sunday.
“Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter what happens, senator?” NBC News’ “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Rubio, a Florida Republican, in an interview.
“No matter what happens? No,” Rubio answered. “If it’s an unfair election, I think it’s going to be contested by either side.”
Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to contest a potential loss in November, stoking doubts about the election’s legitimacy even as polls show the former president leading in battleground states, Reuters reported on Thursday.
The 2020 election was questioned by republicans for months after it concluded. Many investigations were made and found ZERO evidence of interference. If anything, some republicans were charged in a handful of states for election interference crimes.
Questioning an election is one thing, but outright denying the results even after all the evidence suggests that no interference/meddling occurred sets a precedence for future candidates that they can cause chaos in the system by just constantly claiming elections are rigged, eventually causing distrust of the entire system by voters who will just assume that their votes don’t matter because the decision has already been set.
I believe if you are attempting to discredit an election, not because of the potential for foul play, but because you are just upset that you or your candidate of choice lost, and you attempt to destabilize the democratic system in order to achieve your goal, that is treason/sedition and should be a crime that is delt with a severe penalty.