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The electoral system is 40 times more likely to provoke lawsuits than direct elections, according to a study. The Trump camp is trying to legally fight impending defeat.
Twenty years after the Florida election thriller, another US presidential election is heading for a legal decision. Incumbent Donald Trump is fighting defeat with lawsuits in several US states As a recent study by the University of Texas shows, these kinds of lawsuits have a lot to do with the controversial electoral system. In this case, narrow electoral results that end up in the courts are 40 times more likely than in a direct election.
The president of the United States is indirectly elected by voters from all 50 states and the district of Washington DC, and the states of Maine and Nebraska allocate a portion of the electorate at the regional level. In all other places, the candidate with a relative majority of votes receives all the votes of the electors.
“Our findings show that the risk of a controversial election and the apparent illegitimacy of a very narrow result would be significantly lower in a system of popular elections at the national level,” emphasize Geruso and Spears in the study entitled “How likely is it that the Courts select the President of the United States. “(How likely is the courts to elect the President of the United States)
Party political “asymmetry”
Particularly explosive is the knowledge of the experts that there is a political-party “asymmetry” in such tight electoral results. Seventy-one percent of the scenarios concerned democratic candidates who achieved a majority at the national level. The current election also falls into this pattern, which would be a clear thing in the case of a national assessment. Democrat Joe Biden got 71.5 million votes Wednesday night (local time), 3.5 million more than his Republican opponent Donald Trump.
Trump was also around three million votes behind his then Democratic rival Hillary Clinton four years ago, but had won the electors’ college due to narrow victories in the states of Pennsylvania (44,000 votes), Wisconsin (22,000), and Michigan (11,000). ). Clinton dropped the complaints at the time.
The electoral system favors Republican candidates because they have their strongholds in the smaller rural states. These are overrepresented in the electoral college. Each state has at least three electors, which is the minimum number of congressmen and senators. Each of the 50 states has two Senate seats, regardless of size.
Geruso has already established in a previous study that a discrepancy between the results of popular and electoral elections is not unlikely, especially if the result is adjusted. If the two candidates are separated by less than one percentage point at the national level, the probability of an “investment” (different majority in the electoral body) is 45 percent, which is “almost like tossing a coin.” Geruso told the British daily “The Guardian”.
In the 48 presidential elections since 1824, this has happened only four times (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016). The Republican candidate has benefited from this. In 2000, Republican George W. Bush owed his victory an advantage of a few hundred votes in Florida, while Democrat Al Gore got half a million more votes across the country.
The United States electoral system has been politically controversial for years. In addition to the distortion of the will of the electorate, it is criticized that it leads to a concentration of the electoral campaign in a few “undecided states”. Advocates argue that this will motivate candidates to campaign outside of major population centers.
Democrats in particular are pushing to abolish the electoral system. Because a corresponding constitutional amendment is unlikely due to high hurdles (approval by three-quarters of the states), the system must be overridden by an agreement between the states. The “National Interstate Popular Vote Pact” stipulates that the participating states undertake to elect their electors for the national winner of the presidential elections. So far, 16 states with a total of 196 voters have acceded to this treaty. These are all democratic strongholds like California, New York or Illinois. The contract comes into effect as soon as the states that support it have 270 voters and therefore a majority in the electoral college.
The Trump camp now tried to legally fight impending defeat. In Georgia, for example, counting was stopped and votes received on election night were rejected. Trump’s team had previously taken similar legal steps in
Pennsylvania and Michigan announced a recount in Wisconsin. As reported by the CNN news channel, the headline also considered trials in Nevada and Arizona.
Perhaps the most important legal battle is being fought in Pennsylvania. State laws are really clear – all voting cards must be received by 8pm on Election Day to be valid. The state court had decided in the run-up to the elections to extend this deadline, due to the large volume of voting cards and possible mail delays. Republicans protested, their main objective was against the grain, according to which voting cards without postmarks or with illegible postmarks are also valid. This, according to conservatives, would allow voting after election day.
Counting until Friday?
In a sudden decision, the Supreme Court left the longest three-day period for the time being. Therefore, according to the current state, the count continues until Friday. However, the Supreme Court indicated that the decision was based on lack of time and was not judged in its entirety. An appeal from the Republicans and a different trial are very possible. Important detail: The Supreme Court’s whirlwind decision ended in a 4-4 tie because it was impacted before conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett moved in. If the court takes up the case again, Trump’s appointed judge could make a difference.
>> The study of Geruso and Spears
(APA / Stefan Vospernik / stef)
