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US President Donald Trump has been claiming for months that the November 3 election was flawed and fraudulent, possibly because he does not want to acknowledge the outcome in the event of a defeat.
Donald Trump does not hide the fact that a defeat in the November 3 election would not necessarily mean that he will leave the White House. “I’ll have to see that then,” US President Fox News host Chris Wallace responded in July when asked if he would accept the election result. “I have to see that. No, I won’t just say yes. I won’t say no.”
Trump has been trying to cast doubt on the presidential election for months. He repeatedly claims that an increase in vote-by-mail in the crown crisis would open the door to cheating, although according to experts, cases of fraud are extremely rare. “2020 will be the most flawed and fraudulent election in history,” predicted the Republican on Twitter. In late May, the short message service marked a tweet from the president on this topic as misleading for the first time.
Trump’s behavior raises a question that is hard to believe should be asked in the oldest democracy in the world: What happens if the man in the White House really refuses to leave office?
Donald Trump has a lot of power to challenge the election
The US news website “FiveThirtyEight”, which specializes in statistical and data journalism, has addressed this issue in detailed analysis and has determined that the US president has a lot of power at his disposal to challenge the election. And some of the scenarios that could “take the country to the brink of crisis” are even “very plausible”.
One of these possible scenarios looks like this: It is late on Election Day and in the most important “battlefield states”, the most contested states, hundreds of thousands of votes have yet to be counted because the pandemic meant that votes by mail were increasingly popular. As a result, the media has largely avoided proclaiming a winner. Based on the votes already counted, Trump leads in enough states to get at least 270 electoral votes, which would be enough to win the election if his advantage persists into the night. Trump then claims victory for himself. But given that many more Democrats than Republicans vote by letter, and consequently the majority of votes that have yet to be counted come from Democrats, challenger Joe Biden ultimately outshines Trump – a phenomenon that, due to the color of the Democrats, it’s a “blue shift.” The “blue shift” is known.
The example is just one of many possible developments that the Transition Integrity Project, a bipartisan association of more than 100 experts, outlined when it examined in the summer how a potential electoral crisis might unfold. An important result of the project simulations was the understanding of how much power Trump would have if he wanted to challenge the election, writes “FiveThirtyEight” author Geoffrey Skelley. “There is a huge difference between the president of the United States of America, who has incredible coercive power at his disposal, and a challenger who really has no power in our system,” said Skelley Rosa Brooks, a professor at the Law School of Georgetown. University that co-founded the Transition Integrity Project. “Joe Biden can call a press conference, Donald Trump could call the 82nd Airborne Division.”
Stagnation in the US Congress could become a problem
Edward Foley, an Ohio State University law professor and former state attorney general, describes another possible scenario for FiveThirtyEight:
Trump is ahead on election night in the decisive state of Pennsylvania, but due to Democratic gains on the ballot, which will only be counted in the next few days, Biden surpasses him by a few thousand votes. What happens next quickly turns into a dispute between parties. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signs Pennsylvania’s “Certificate of Verification,” an electoral certificate that all states must issue, and confirms Biden’s victory by listing Democratic voters as those who send Pennsylvania to the Electoral College. who will vote on the future president on December 14.
At the same time, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature is appointing a different group of voters at Trump’s behest because the president of the United States claims there was widespread electoral fraud.
If so, it would likely result in immediate legal challenges in state and federal courts, perhaps followed by intervention by the United States Supreme Court. But even if a court declared one of the constituencies illegal, the United States Congress, which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives, would still have the power to consider both groups as long as it has the “Certificate of Verification.” correspondent. If Republicans can defend their Senate supremacy in elections and Democrats retain a majority in the House of Representatives, it is unlikely that the two houses can agree on a joint approach.
In the Foley scenario, Vice President Mike Pence, who as president of the Senate would oversee the tally in Congress, follows a possible interpretation of the election law and does not allow either constituency to count because they are in conflict. This subtracts Pennsylvania’s votes from the total of 538 voters and gives Trump a majority based on the remaining 518 electoral votes. Democrats counter this, claiming the law prefers the governor’s seal of approval that makes Biden a winner.
In the absence of a compromise, the United States is in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis. In this scenario, the Supreme Court could be called if, for example, Democrats seek an injunction to prevent Pence from abandoning the Pennsylvania vote. It is also possible that the court will reject a decision on the counting dispute because neither the constitution nor electoral laws give the judiciary a role in this process, Foley believes.
Even Nancy Pelosi could become president
In any case, it is clear that someone has to assume the presidency of the United States on January 20, 2021. This is determined by the 20th Amendment to the US Constitution. However, the amendment does not specify how to proceed if there is a dispute over who qualified for the position. “What we know for sure is that the current period is ending,” quotes Professor Foley “FiveThirtyEight.” However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to name the next headline if there’s a difference of opinion about it.
In fact, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, even the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, could claim that she was the next in line to take office, leave her seat in the House, and serve as Speaker. even Biden will be declared the winner of the election, writes Skelley in his analysis. But if Republicans claim that Trump won the election, they would certainly oppose Pelosi’s inauguration. In a crisis of this magnitude, it is difficult to predict what exactly would happen then, but the author fears that things will most likely get out of hand. And the resulting uncertainty could spark riots and protests that could easily lead to violence.
In view of the enormous importance attached to this election by all parties, experts from the Transition Integrity Project do not believe that it is out of the question that Joe Biden could also challenge the result, for example, if Trump had the majority of the votes of electricians in the 2016 race against Hillary Clinton. receives, but is clearly behind its rival in terms of votes across the country. However, unlike Trump, Biden never made any suggestions in this direction.
The scenarios outlined by the Transition Integrity Project and Edward Foley should not be seen as inevitable consequences of the November 3 election, concludes Skelley. However, they made clear that the “rickety apparatus” that controls the electoral process in the United States could collapse if major players act against it. “But even if worst-case scenarios don’t happen, the fact that we don’t have a neutral electoral referee is definitely a time bomb for our democracy.”
Puff up: “FiveThirtyEight”, Transition Integrity Project, Fox News, US Election Atlas.
