With Donald Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and irregularities (combined with his own acts to create the fraud he’s screaming will happen), prepare yourselves now for unprecedented election chaos this November.
Politics
In almost every other previous election in US history, the final results and the actual winner has been announced on election night. Don’t expect the same in 2020. Thanks to COVID-19 and the need for more Americans to vote by mail than ever before, it will be simply impossible for all in-person and mail-in votes to be tabulated within one night. Election officials are already predicting that the process to tally all votes and announce a sure winner could take a full week or more. However, that won’t stop Donald Trump from exacerbating the situation and creating election chaos.
In 2016, Trump claimed that the reason he lost the popular vote was due to “millions” of illegal votes, despite there being zero evidence. He’s now doing the same in 2020. Additionally, Trump has given a wink-and-a-nod to his MAGA fanatics to head to the polls and physically engage in voter suppression/intimidation (under the guise of looking out for irregularities). He has also boldly encouraged them to vote twice. Or, in other words, Trump has claimed the 2020 election will be fraudulent — then openly told his followers to go out and create the very fraud he said will happen. That way, (if he loses) he can say “See, I told you so!”
Further, Donald Trump has spent much of his professional life engaged in lawsuits and court battles. The 2020 election will be no different for him. Should he lose, he will NEVER accept the results and NEVER accept defeat (and will file a mountain of lawsuits to contest the results). Nor will he be a statesman similar to Al Gore in 2000 and encourage his supporters to accept the new president and move on for the sake of the country. In fact, it’s very possible he will have to be physically removed from The White House on January 20, 2021. He certainly won’t greet President-elect and Mrs. Biden at The White House or attend the inauguration.
So, what will happen if Trump’s lawsuits create enough election chaos and delays to prevent an actual winner from being determined in time for the January 20, 2021 inauguration? There is a remedy.
According to the US Constitution, Donald Trump’s term ends at noon on January 20, 2021, no matter what. If neither Trump nor Joe Biden is certified by then as the next POTUS, then the Speaker of the House will become the acting President of the United States. Since Democrats are widely expected to retain control of the US House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (if she wins re-election) or whomever Democrats elect as speaker during the first week of January will take the Oval Office.
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AN ELECTORAL TIE:
What if Donald Trump and Joe Biden each earn the exact amount of electoral votes and there is a 269-269 tie (with 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency)? According to 270towin.com: “If neither candidate gets a majority of the 538 electoral votes, the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote.” This means that a majority of states (26) would be needed to win. Interestingly, although there are more Democratic representatives in the US House, Republicans control the most number of states. Under this scenario, Republicans would likely have the 26 majority and would re-elect Donald Trump.
The US Senate would then be responsible for selecting the vice-president, with each senator having 1 single vote. If the Republicans retain control of the majority following the 2020 election, they would likely select Mike Pence as vice-president. However, if Democrats win control of the Senate in the November election, they would likely select Kamala Harris — which could create an end result of Donald Trump as president and Kamala Harris as vice-president.
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TRUMP’S FINAL ACT
Should all scenarios lead to a Donald Trump defeat, his ego will never accept it. So, expect him to have one final trick up his sleeve.
On January 19, 2021, don’t be surprised if Donald Trump resigns the presidency and accepts a full pardon from (one day only) President Mike Pence for all past, present, and future federal illegalities. However, because a presidential pardon only has jurisdiction over federal crimes and not state crimes and because New York State is prepared to charge Trump with myriad crimes the moment he leaves office, ‘The Donald’ won’t be able to fully escape the long arm of the law. So, don’t put it past Trump to flee the United States on the morning of January 20th for Russia or some foreign destination that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US.
“The best we can expect from President Donald Trump after an electoral defeat is self-pitying, peevish submission,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “If he goes — which will require an overwhelming electoral defeat — Trump is not only sure to play the victim, blaming the Deep State and undocumented immigrants for his loss, but also likely to linger and delay his departure. The ragged end of his Presidency, if it comes, will be full of conflict and resentment. There will be no orderly handover, no constructive transition—a disastrous prospect during a pandemic and a deep recession, and yet another blow to our perceptions of how elections and government operate.”
“The writing is on the wall: Trump has spent the last 3.5 years undermining our democracy, ignoring our institutional norms,” Indivisible Co-Executive Director Ezra Levin said. “He’s already trying to sow the seeds of that trend after November 3.”
Five Thirty Eight: What happens if Trump won’t go? The answer is bleak. Experts tell me that the president actually has a lot of power at his discretion to contest the election, and some of the scenarios that could bring us to the edge of a crisis are actually very plausible. Consider this one: It’s late on Election Day, and hundreds of thousands of votes in key battleground states still have to be counted due to the increased use of mail and absentee voting because of the pandemic. As a result, media outlets have largely avoided calling the race, but based on the votes that have been counted, Trump leads in enough states to reach at least 270 electoral votes, which would be enough to win the election if his election-night lead holds. Trump claims victory, but because Democrats were much more likely to vote by mail than Republicans, Joe Biden eventually pulls ahead because of the Democratic… Read more »