Simply hours after the polls closed within the 2020 United States presidential election, as tens of millions of votes had been nonetheless being counted, Donald Trump delivered a rare tackle.
“We had been on the brink of win this election – frankly, we did win this election,” the then-president instructed reporters within the early morning hours after Election Day, alleging that “a significant fraud” was being dedicated.
“We wish all voting to cease. We don’t need them to search out any ballots at 4 o’clock within the morning and add them to the listing,” he stated.
Trump’s untimely — and false — declare of victory over his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who finally gained the 2020 election, capped weeks of unfaithful voter fraud allegations made by the Republican incumbent.
4 years later, as the 2024 race between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris stays too near name, consultants once more are stressing that it might take days to depend the votes — and that isn’t an indication of malfeasance.
“Identical to in 2020, it’s fully regular for vote counting to take a number of days,” stated Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the voting rights mission on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
That’s very true “in intently contested states the place issues are going to be scrutinised and also you’re going to should depend lots of votes earlier than you’re going to have a way of who’s going to win these states”.
“It’s going to take time, and that’s because of built-in verification steps within the counting course of to make sure accuracy,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Totally different procedures
Vote counting takes time within the US for quite a lot of causes, together with how elections are administered and the way ballots are processed.
Every US state runs elections its personal method, and because of this, every state’s vote depend takes a special period of time, defined Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor of regulation at Stetson College School of Regulation in Florida.
For instance, the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t enable mail-in ballots to be processed earlier than Election Day, which means their respective counts will probably take longer.
“Others get a head begin by beginning the counting course of earlier in the course of the early voting interval,” Torres-Spelliscy instructed Al Jazeera in an e mail.
“And states have vastly totally different inhabitants sizes. Wyoming has a tiny inhabitants whereas California has extra individuals dwelling in it than Canada. The larger the inhabitants of voters, the longer it takes to depend their ballots, which may quantity within the tens of millions.”
In the meantime, states additionally should kind by way of what are generally known as provisional ballots. These are ballots solid by individuals whose voter registration standing should first be verified earlier than their vote is counted, thereby taking just a little bit longer.
Finally, that it might probably take hours — and even days — after Election Day to depend votes is not an indication of any unlawful act, Torres-Spelliscy stated. “Simply because it takes a populous state a number of days to depend tens of millions of votes is just not proof of fraud.”
Misperceptions, misinformation
Nonetheless, misinformation can rapidly unfold within the time it takes to tabulate the votes — and between when the polls shut and when a projected winner is introduced.
Whereas states can take weeks to launch their official vote tallies, US media organisations make projections based mostly on their very own methodologies in addition to preliminary outcomes.
This “election name” — a information outlet asserting a projected presidential winner — can occur on election night time. However in nearer contests, similar to the 2020 race between Trump and Biden, it might probably take a number of days.
Most polling main as much as Election Day this 12 months confirmed Harris and Trump locked in a race that’s too near name and can probably come right down to how the candidates fare in seven vital battleground states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.
The potential for misinformation on this interval is very excessive in a polarised nation the place Trump has now spent years claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him and the electoral system total is rife with fraud.
These beliefs are held by many Individuals: In response to a September 2023 survey by the Public Faith Analysis Institute, 66 p.c of Republican voters stated they believed the “Huge Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
A phenomenon generally known as the “Blue Shift” also can add to false perceptions that one thing nefarious is occurring, because it did in 2020.
The time period refers to a second in US elections when the outcomes start to shift in favour of Democrats as extra mail-in ballots get counted all through the day. Usually, extra Democratic voters have voted by mail than Republicans, nevertheless it stays to be seen if that can once more be the case this 12 months.
In 2020, Trump “used that change within the numbers over the course of the day … to create this concept that one thing was fallacious”, Lakin on the ACLU stated.
“Nevertheless it was the conventional processing of ballots; it was only a function of the way in which individuals had been opting to vote in that specific 12 months.”
‘Yelling fraud and irregularity’
Regardless of myriad consultants debunking Trump’s fraud claims, the previous president has continued to make false allegations all through the 2024 race.
On the marketing campaign path, the previous president repeatedly warned of voter fraud, together with the prospect that noncitizens had been voting as a part of a Democratic plot to skew the ends in Harris’s favour — a declare consultants have slammed as unfaithful.
His group has filed quite a lot of lawsuits associated to alleged irregularities on voter rolls, the lists of people who find themselves eligible to solid ballots.
And Trump additionally embraced the slogan “too huge to rig” to induce his supporters to vote in numbers giant sufficient to “assure we win by greater than the margin of fraud”.
“He’s already form of introduced that he’s the winner earlier than the ballots have even been counted. This is identical declare that he made in 2020: If he’s not the winner of the official depend, it might probably solely be due to fraud,” stated James Gardner, a professor on the College of Buffalo Faculty of Regulation in New York state.
“He has already laid the groundwork for yelling fraud and irregularity simply because he may not win. If that’s your start line, the truth that it takes some time to depend the ballots is just one of 1,000,000 various things you could say.”
In response to Gardner, “the basis of the issue is that the Republican Celebration below Trump is just not prepared to play by the foundations of democracy.
“It believes that it deserves to be in energy no matter electoral outcomes. So because of this, it doesn’t adhere to any of the ethics of democratic honest play. Democracy relies on honest guidelines of honest competitors, and the Trump Republican Celebration is just not dedicated to these.”
Potential for violence
Torres-Spelliscy famous that even when Trump does say he gained earlier than all of the votes are counted, that sort of pronouncement “makes no distinction legally”.
“What issues is who states and DC certify and which candidate wins 270 Electoral School votes,” she defined.
Nonetheless, if Trump prematurely declares victory over Harris and is finally discovered to have misplaced after the votes are counted, that might add to the mistrust, anger and emotions of injustice that already permeate amongst lots of the former president’s supporters.
“What’s going to occur this time — what’s already taking place — is that there’s going to be all types of outlandish claims made by way of the media, and that can on the very least inflame Trump’s supporters,” Gardner stated. “And who is aware of what they’ll do.”
Amid Trump’s false fraud claims after the 2020 vote, a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC, to attempt to cease Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.
The January 6, 2021, rebel continues to reverberate throughout the nation, Lakin stated, because the false claims of a stolen election “created this enormous divide on this nation and finally led to violence”.
“That may be unlucky if that had been to occur once more,” she stated. “It will be a travesty for democracy if we will’t work out easy methods to return to a peaceable switch of energy.”