Despite the incomplete results from many war zones that could determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential race, President Donald Trump announced victory in a Democratic Alliance challenge Joe Biden on Wednesday.
The move ahead of time has confirmed concerns Democrats have expressed in weeks that Trump will seek to contest the election results. That would eliminate any number of legal and political games in which the presidency could be determined by a particular combination of courts, national politicians and Congress.
Here are the various ways in which elections can be contested:
RULES
Preliminary voting data show Democrats voting by post at a much higher rate than Republicans. In states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that do not count by postal election until election day, the first results seem to favor Trump because they are slow to count the votes sent by post. Democrats have expressed concern that Trump, as he did on Wednesday, would announce victory before a full vote.
Imminent elections could lead to litigation and voting in war zones. Cases filed in each state could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, as was Florida’s 2000 election, when Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by only 537 votes in Florida after the Supreme Court suspended the recount.
Trump has appointed Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Justice a few days before the election, creating a 6-3 conservative majority that would favor the president if the courts scrutinized the contested election.
“We want the law to be implemented properly. We will therefore be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to be stopped, ”Trump said on Wednesday, despite U.S. election laws. It requires all votes to be counted, and many states take days to complete the official vote count.
COLLECTIVE CHOICE
U.S. President He is not elected by a majority of popular votes. Under the Constitution, a candidate who wins the majority of 538 voters, known as the Electoral College, becomes the next president. In 2016, Trump lost a national vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton but garnered 304 votes in 227 votes.
A candidate who wins the popular vote of each state usually wins the election of the state electorate. This year, voters met on December 14 to vote. Both rooms in Congress will meet on January 6 to count the votes and be declared the winner.
Usually, managers verify results in their constituencies and share information with Congress.
But some scholars have pointed out a situation in which the governor and the legislature in a very controversial situation submitted different election results. The war zones of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina all have Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures.
According to legal experts, it is unclear in this case whether Congress should accept the governor’s total election or not count the state election votes at all.
While many experts view this situation as impossible, there is a historical precedent. The Republic of Florida-led Florida legislature considered bringing its nominees in 2000 before the Supreme Court ended the contest between Bush and Gore. In 1876, three states elected “two-party electorate,” prompting Congress to pass the Electoral Count Act (ECA) in 1887.
Under this action, each room in Congress would decide separately on the amount of “electorate” needed to receive. So far, Republicans have been in charge of the Senate for some time now with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, but a run-off election was made by a new Congress, to be sworn in on January 3.
If the two chambers disagreed, it was not entirely clear what would have happened.
The move states that candidates nominated by the “official” of each state must win. Many scholars interpret that to be the case for the emperor, but others reject that argument. The law has never been tried or interpreted by the courts.
Ned Foley, a professor of law at Ohio State University, called the ECA’s name “almost invincible” in a 2019 paper examining the possibility of a Electoral College controversy.
It is also possible that Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, in his capacity as Senate president, could try to oust the opposing electoral votes altogether if both parties disagree, according to Foley’s analysis.
In that case, the Electoral College Act does not specify that a candidate will still need 270 votes, most of them, or can win by a majority of votes – for example, 260 out of 518 votes left if Pennsylvania voters are not allowed.
“It is fair to say that none of these laws have been tested by pressure before,” Benjamin Ginsberg, a lawyer who represented Bush’s campaign during the 2000 conflict, told reporters at a conference on October 20.
Parties can ask the Supreme Court to resolve any organizational irregularities, but it is uncertain whether the court will agree to rule on how Congress should record the election votes.
‘CONTINUOUS ELECTION’
The determination that no one will get a majority in the election will trigger a “by-election” under the 12th amendment to the Constitution. That means the House of Representatives elects the next president, while the Senate elects a vice president.
Each state party in the House receives one vote. Currently, the Republic controls 26 out of 50 state embassies, and the Democrats have 22; one is equally divided and the other has seven Democrats, six Republicans and a Libertarian.
Electional elections also take place in the event of a 269-269 reunion after the election; there are several sensible ways to prevent the ban by 2020.
Any election dispute in Congress will begin before the deadline – January 20, when the Constitution mandates the end of the current presidency.
Under the Presidential Succession Act, if Congress has not yet declared a successor to the President or Deputy President, the Speaker of the House shall act as acting President. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, is the current speaker.