November 8, 2020 8:06:11 pm
President-elect Joe Biden gestures to his supporters Saturday, November 7, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo: AP)
Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, nearly four days after the country’s election day. With more than 75 million votes so far, President-elect Biden has received more than 50 percent of the country’s popular vote, compared to 48 percent for Trump.
In any other election, there should have been a smooth transition of power from incumbent to successor in the next two months. But this is no ordinary election. There are many potential roadblocks that could come between Biden and his formal inauguration, which is scheduled for January 20 of next year.
In fact, months before Election Day, a bipartisan group of more than 100 former government and military officials, academics and journalists, calling themselves the “Transitional Integrity Project,” warned that the transition process could lead to a crisis. constitutional.
What if Trump doesn’t concede?
Trump has already refused to budge, instead vowing to launch a legal assault on Biden’s campaign to challenge his victory. But while a private phone call to the race winner and a public concession are long-standing American traditions, they are by no means mandatory.
In a thinly veiled attack on Trump, a Biden spokesman issued a forceful statement saying the administration “is perfectly capable of escorting intruders out of the White House” if the need arises.
But Trump has some legal obligations as a sitting president. You are required to handle the logistics so that Biden’s team can eventually take over. According to the BBC, the Trump administration has already started this process.
What are the legal challenges that Biden may face?
The Trump campaign has filed a series of lawsuits challenging the election results in different key battlefield states across the country, where the president was defeated by a narrow margin. Most of the cases were in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Michigan, where the Trump campaign called for the count to be stopped or stopped altogether.
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Trump has repeatedly made a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” votes; the latter refers to absentee ballot papers which, according to him, without proof, were sent after Election Day.
In fact, shortly after the Associated Press projected Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, pushing him beyond the 270 electoral votes he needed to win the presidency, Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, alleged that the recount and prosecution of the missing ballots in Philadelphia had been fraudulent.
But legal experts have said these lawsuits have little scope to destabilize Biden’s lead, which has only widened in the past two days. In fact, several of the lawsuits have already been dismissed. This is because cases of voter fraud in the US are extremely rare, as election officials closely monitor the processing and counting of ballots, particularly those that are sent by mail.
Could counts be done in some states?
Yes. Several states in the United States allow recounts to be taken if the difference in votes between candidates falls within a certain margin or if voting irregularities are detected.
In states like Wisconsin, for example, a candidate can request a recount if the margin is less than 1 percentage point. The Trump campaign has already called for a recount in the state, where Biden leads by around 0.7 percentage points.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, the margin has to be less than 0.5 percent of the votes cast to qualify for a recount. State election officials called for a recount Friday after the race was deemed “too close to call.” Biden currently leads here by just 0.2 percentage points.
But stories rarely change the results of the race. According to data released by the electoral reform group FairVote, 5,778 elections were held statewide between 2000 and 2019. Of these, 31 resulted in state recount. Only three of these counts concluded with a reversal of the original result.
Who are the voters and what are the challenges they may pose?
Under the US polling station system, voters do not cast their vote directly for the presidential candidates themselves. Instead of voting for Trump or Biden, they are actually choosing an ‘elector’ who is representative of that candidate’s party. Voters, in turn, cast their votes for the president.
The US electoral college system comprises 538 voters from all 50 states. To win, a candidate must obtain at least half plus one, or a total of 270 electoral votes.
One week after Election Day, states begin to certify election results. While news organizations have already called out the winner of the race and Biden and Harris have delivered their acceptance speeches, US law requires state results to be unofficial until the certification process is complete on all the state.
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On December 14, the electors chosen by the parties will all meet to cast their vote for the presidency. While these electors generally act according to the will of the people, it is not guaranteed by the constitution.
There is the occasional “cheat voter,” a member of the electoral college who does not vote for the presidential candidate they pledged to vote for and instead votes for another candidate or does not vote at all. But several US states require their presidential electors to vote by popular vote.
According to data from the US National Archives website, it is rare for a voter to go against their promise. “Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of voters have voted as promised,” reads a summary on the website.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that individual states can place restrictions on the way voters vote to ensure they don’t abandon their promised vote.
By December 23, certified electoral votes must reach the Capitol of the respective states. A new Congress is sworn in on January 3 and three days later, a joint session of the House and Senate meet to count the electoral votes and finally declare the result.
Once the votes are counted and a candidate appears to have obtained the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency, the vice president, who is also the president of the Senate, formally announces the result.
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This congressional count is the last time a candidate can question the results. A complaint must be submitted in writing by at least one member of the House and Senate for it to be considered. The joint session then discusses the objection for up to two hours. For the objection to move forward, both houses must agree.
If the Democrats manage to maintain control of the House and the Republicans control the Senate, it will be difficult for an objection to move forward.
Finally, the inauguration event on January 20 marks the culmination of the transition process, with the new president and vice president taking the oath.
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