South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem condemned presumptive President-elect Joe Biden’s “premature” declaration of victory.
“If Joe Biden really wants to unify this country, he should wait until we can ensure that we had a fair election,” Noem wrote on Twitter, after her appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
If Joe Biden really wants to unify this country, he should wait until we can ensure that we had a fair election.
— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) November 8, 2020
When asked Sunday if she would be willing to work with Biden to reduce COVID-19 rates in her state, Noem called it a premature conversation because ballot canvassing has not been completed.
“This is a premature conversation because we have not finished counting votes. There are states that have not been called, and back in 2000, Al Gore was given his day in court,” she said on Sunday. “We should give President Trump his day in court. Let the process unfold because, George, we live in a republic.”
The 2000 election was plagued by lawsuits over ballots in Florida, on Dec. 12 of that year, the Supreme Court ruled that the counting of disputed ballots should cease after the Florida House of Representatives voted to appoint the state’s electors for George W. Bush.
Biden declared victory on Saturday after several major media outlets called the race for him, telling the crowd at his first speech as president-elect that Americans “have delivered us a clear victory, a convincing victory, a victory for ‘We the people.’”
Trump has not conceded the election, and his campaign has initiated lawsuits in hotly contested states, including Pennsylvania, where they allege in part that Republican poll-watchers were not provided meaningful access to watch the vote canvassing in the heavily-Democratic city.
“We are a government that gets its power from the consent of the governed. That is the people. They give their consent on Election Day,” Noem told Stephanopoulos. “Election Day needs to be fair, honest, and transparent, and we need to be sure that we had an honest election before we decide who gets to the White House the next four years.”
