The Note: Unfinished counting risks faith in elections

The TAKE with Rick Klein

If this election was a celebration of democracy, with midterm turnout not matched in more than a century, the post-election period has been the opposite.

There’s nothing new or unusual about uncalled races, recounts, runoffs and the heated rhetoric that accompanies stakes this high.

But the week-plus since Election Day has featured more than legal wrangling and bold predictions. It has highlighted political leaders directly questioning -- and often without evidence -- whether election outcomes are even legitimate.

Republican leaders have been driving baseless claims about voter fraud and the potential to "steal" elections in Florida.

"Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again," Trump told The Daily Caller.

Most of the claims have no evidence behind them, and are probably irrelevant because -- with the machine-recount deadline coming at 3 p.m. Thursday -- GOP candidates are likely to prevail in both the governor’s and Senate races in Florida, anyway.

Then there’s Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who sought to sow doubt in the ongoing vote-counting process in Georgia with an explosive choice of words on Wednesday.

"Stacey Abrams doesn't win in Georgia -- they stole it. It's clear. It's clear. Now I say that publicly -- it's clear," said Brown, who is mulling a run for president.

Elections these days seem to go on forever. It’s an open question, now being driven by leaders in both parties, about whether this one will ever really end.

The RUNDOWN with MaryAlice Parks

Could we see bipartisan legislative action soon?

To get work done with a divided Congress, the White House will have to work across the aisle in the new year. That’s just how it works.

But the president’s decision to formally back and promote criminal justice reform the first week that members were back in town, set the potential for collaborative, bipartisan work even sooner.

The next questions is, will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell play ball?

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, McConnell seemed to throw cold water on the idea of taking up this type of legislation, to retroactively change sentencing guidelines among other things, on top of everything else Congress needs to do in the lame duck session.

But the president seemed all in, telling the crowd in the Roosevelt Room he would be "waiting with a pen."

"True bipartisanship is possible," President Donald Trump said. "It will have to be, if we want to get things done."

On this topic especially, Democratic leaders will likely agree and be excited to push in the Senate.

The TIP with John Verhovek

Just over a week has passed since the 2018 midterms re-delivered control of the U.S Senate to the Republican Party, but no, it’s not too soon to talk about the 2020 map that awaits.

A dominating theme of the midterms was the tremendous uphill climb that Democrats faced with 10 incumbents up for re-election in states that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, and just one Republican incumbent, Nevada’s Dean Heller, up in a state that sided with Hillary Clinton.

The 2020 map offers no such safe harbor for the GOP.

There are two Senate Democrats, Alabama’s Doug Jones and Michigan’s Gary Peters, up in states that Trump won in 2016, and two Republican incumbents, Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Maine’s Susan Collins, up in Clinton-won states.

Meanwhile, barring retirements the GOP will be defending more than 20 incumbents, while Democrats likely just 12.

There are, of course, a myriad of questions to be answered about the 2020 political landscape (namely an actual opponent for Trump), but for now it’s clear the Senate map in two years will be fundamentally different than the one both parties competed on last week.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" Podcast. Thursday’s episode features Nancy Pelosi’s House speakership battle with ABC News Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce and ABC News’ Ben Siegel. And CNN has sued the White House over Jim Acosta’s press access, but do they have a case? ABC News Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams tells us CNN has a "good shot of winning this." https://bit.ly/2M7OS5c

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