Election certification is a traditionally routine duty that has become politicized in the Trump era

Associated Press

Former President Donald Trump and his allies are laying the groundwork to potentially block certification of the vote if he narrowly loses his bid for reelection this November. Most of the country’s thousands of individual election jurisdictions — many of which have been taken over by Trump supporters — have to officially certify their vote tallies before a state can certify a winner. If just one of those counties refuses to certify, it could stop a state from signing off on a Trump loss. But legal experts say there is no actual legal risk of Trump’s allies being able to do that. Decades of case law hold that local officials have no choice but to certify election results.