My postelection contacts with area voters show a diverse view of President Donald Trump’s contesting the legitimacy of the state’s Nov. 3 general election results.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf certified the results late last month, which gave President-elect Joe Biden the commonwealth’s 20 electoral votes made possible by Biden’s unofficial 81,660-vote win.

The next step is for the slate of electors pledged to Biden to meet in Harrisburg Dec. 14 to make it official.

The road from Nov. 3 until the last weekend of November was marked by a flurry of legal activity on behalf of Trump and his legal team to overturn Pennsylvania’s results and, despite the will of the electorate, give the win to Trump.

The same scenario had played out in other battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, all with the same results: Despite claim after claim of widespread voter fraud, not a single case has been upheld. Several cases in Pennsylvania are pending additional court action, including one the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to weigh in on.

NBC’s judicial correspondent Pete Williams categorized all of the Pennsylvania lawsuits. When you look at them in their entirety, and evaluate the judicial outcome, you are struck by how desperate some of these efforts were.

Most of these legal maneuvers were shot down or withdrawn, and no court has found even one instance of fraud. Williams said that of at least 41 cases to have been filed, including some not directly involving Trump but which could affect his standing, at least 27 have been denied, dismissed, settled or withdrawn.

In the most recent, in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court case Kelly v. Pennsylvania, a group of Republicans, led by U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, claimed that the state’s no-excuse mail ballot law violates the state constitution. They sought an order either blocking certification of most mail-in votes or a directive that the Republican-controlled state General Assembly choose the presidential electors.

Although a Commonwealth Court judge looked favorably upon the suit, the state Supreme Court voted unanimously against it.

On Tuesday, Kelly and Republican congressional candidate Sean Parnell, who lost to incumbent Democrat Conor Lamb, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and, specifically, conservative associate Justice Samuel Alito asking for the high court to issue an injunction. At least four of the nine justices must consider the case to have merit before it would be taken up.

Opinions from voters with whom I spoke ranged from Trump being a “sore loser” to many Republicans who agree with Trump that the election was rigged. I tried to bore in on this opinion, pointing out that in each voting district there are both designated Republican and Democratic poll-watchers who sat in on the count, and in most counties, including the five in our area, there are paper printouts of the machine votes.

Even U.S. Attorney General William Barr said this week that an investigation by his office found nothing that could change the outcome of the election. This was a major break with Trump since Barr is considered one of the president’s most ardent allies.

There was near unanimous agreement that this was one of the most well-run elections in the state’s and nation’s history. Nationally, cybersecurity chief at the Department of Homeland Security, Christopher Krebs, a Trump appointee, called the 2020 presidential election “the most secure in American history.” Trump promptly fired him.

This, mind you, was at a time with unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots and the overall casting of nearly 7 million votes in Pennsylvania and more than 154 million nationally, both records.

Despite this, 77% of Republican voters nationwide believed there were widespread irregularities and fraud - many of them taking their cue from Trump, who has daily tweeted and otherwise communicated debunked accusations and conspiratorial theories.

This weekslong attempt to subvert the voice of the electorate could have had dire consequences in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Whether it will have long-term repercussions remains to be seen.

If the Republican legislative leadership in Pennsylvania and elsewhere had acquiesced to the president’s arm-twisting to seat GOP electors, despite the outcome of the Biden victories in their states, it could have touched off a constitutional crisis of unprecedented proportions. To their credit, the GOP leadership said early and often that they would abide by the voice of the electorate.

Understand that I have no quarrel with legitimate calls for recounts, or legal challenges when there is proof of fraud or wrongdoing, but when judge after judge reprimands and chides Trump attorneys, including lead counsel Rudy Giuliani, for filing “stitched together” and “frivolous” claims, this is not professional or healthy for our nation.

Our democratic institutions have apparently withstood this assault on one of our basic and fundamental rights - voting with the expectation that our ballot will be counted fairly and our choice respected, regardless of the candidate’s party.

But what about the next time? Has what we have just seen and lived through in 2020 been a wake-up call that we need to re-examine our electoral system?

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com