HARTFORD—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday held a media availability to discuss the 2020 election. In his remarks, Murphy thanked the poll workers across Connecticut who showed up to ensure Election Day went safely and smoothly, and reiterated the importance of counting every single vote before determining the next President of the United States.

Thanking the poll workers across Connecticut, Murphy said: “We had an event-free Election Day yesterday in Connecticut. That's unfortunately rare in this state…[A] real credit to Denise Merrill and her team and clerks and registrars all across the state who had to conduct an election with record turnout amidst very difficult circumstances and seem to have pulled it off incredibly well.”

Murphy then went on to discuss the importance of counting every single vote: “[W]e don't live in a democracy if we don't have a commitment to count all the votes…What separates a democracy from an autocracy is that we count all the votes, we let the people decide who's going to lead this country.”

Murphy continued: “Republicans and Democrats should both be objecting to anything the president tries to do to stop the counting of votes. And let's be clear: it was Republicans who made the decision in most of these states to wait until today to count the votes. It was Republican state legislatures in the Midwest that pushed off the counting of mail-in votes until today. It was Republican county officials in Pennsylvania that decided to not start counting mail-in votes yesterday and only start that count today. So many Republicans in these states are responsible for the count being delayed a day or two.”

Last month, Murphy along with U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) released a report summarizing for the American people what to expect on Election Day and reinforcing the Democrats’ call to encourage everyone to vote. The report follows the months-long effort by President Trump to undermine the election and his repeated refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

A full transcript of Murphy’s remarks can be found below:

“Thanks, everyone for being here today. Let me add by just expressing my gratitude to all the poll workers here in Connecticut. We had an event-free Election Day yesterday in Connecticut. That's unfortunately rare in this state. It seems that every two years we normally have one meltdown that's happening somewhere around the state. That didn't happen yesterday—a real credit to Denise Merrill and her team and clerks and registrars all across the state who had to conduct an election with record turnout amidst very difficult circumstances and seem to have pulled it off incredibly well.

“I voted just up the street here, at my polling place in Hartford. You know, these poll workers, they were putting their safety in jeopardy by being out there all day yesterday. Polling places were safe, the lines were long, but a lot of gratitude goes to the people who made a safe and efficient Election Day happen here in Connecticut. 

“My congratulations to the winners here in Connecticut. You know, pretty impressive to have Democrats now looking at a supermajority in the State Senate, and expanding their majority in the State House by at least seven seats. You know, when your majorities get big, it's hard to make them even bigger. And we had a lot of fantastic candidates, many of them ran for the first time in 2018, come back and run again in 2020, and prove victorious. And I think that speaks to the sustainability of the movement in Connecticut. There is a lot of new people who have gotten involved in politics since 2016 in Connecticut. Many of them won last night and are going to be forces for good and forces for change in the state for a long time.

“Turning to the federal seat: we don't live in a democracy if we don't have a commitment to count all the votes. What separates a democracy from an autocracy is that we count all the votes, we let the people decide who's going to lead this country. When all the votes are counted, it looks as if Joe Biden is going to be the winner. Dick, I think, did a good summary of where things stand today. But once the votes are counted, I don't think there's any way that Vice President Biden won't have a majority of both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote. And he may, by the end of the day tomorrow, have won in some surprising places like Georgia, where the count is still open.

“But our commitment today has to be to counting all of these votes. And Republicans and Democrats need to come down hard on the president if he tries to cut off this count. Dick’s right; the courtroom doors are open to anybody, but that doesn't mean we need to endorse the president trying to bring specious legal claims that seek to do only one thing and one thing only, which is to stop the counting of votes. 

“And Republicans and Democrats should both be objecting to anything the president tries to do to stop the counting of votes. And let's be clear: it was Republicans who made the decision in most of these states to wait until today to count the votes. It was Republican state legislatures in the Midwest that pushed off the counting of mail-in votes until today. It was Republican county officials in Pennsylvania that decided to not start counting mail-in votes yesterday and only start that count today. So many Republicans in these states are responsible for the count being delayed a day or two.

“And so it's interesting that Republicans have undergone this campaign to push the count off for 24 or 48 hours and then have a Republican president trying to shut that count down. I don't think that's going to happen. I think these votes are all going to be counted, and I believe that at the end of the day, Joe Biden is going to be elected president. And that's good news for Connecticut. 

“We're not here to declare a winner, but we know if Joe Biden's president, that's good news for our state. Joe Biden knows Connecticut, he cares about our state, he's going to work with our governor to finally turn the corner on COVID. He's going to push for infrastructure investments that will help us rebuild our transportation and energy grid here in the state. He's going to lead on issues like gun violence. 

“Obviously, we don't have all of the results in the United States Senate. It may come down to a couple of special elections in Georgia in January. But no matter what happens in the Senate, the election of Joe Biden, as it looks like will happen, is great news for Connecticut. He's going to invest in Connecticut, he's going to help us confront the pandemic in Connecticut, and he's going work closely with the delegation on our priorities as well.

“So we'll be monitoring the count throughout the day and throughout tomorrow. We'll be talking to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure that we build bipartisan support for counting every vote. And I think when all is said and done, perhaps later today, perhaps tomorrow, we will be able to declare definitively who's won this election, and it looks as if that will be the Vice President Joe Biden. I’m happy to take questions.”

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