While the winner is still not known, Donald Trump continues to harbor suspicion about the sincerity of the vote.
The outgoing president announced several legal proceedings including a request for a recount of the votes in Wisconsin, won by his rival on Wednesday evening (French time).
If the procedure is recurrent in the United States, the votes of Wisconsin having already been recounted in 2016, it is however not obvious and differs according to the States.
Live: LIVE - US Presidential: Biden wins Wisconsin, Michigan and draws closer to victory
With 98% of the votes counted and a lead of 20,510 votes (49.4% to 48.8%), Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election in the state of Wisconsin, a
swing state
.
Donald Trump and his campaign team did not, however, wait for the announcement of the Democratic candidate's victory to announce that they would ask for a recount of the votes.
"Irregularities have been reported in several counties in Wisconsin which cast serious doubts on the validity of the results,"
said Bill Stepien, Donald Trump's campaign manager.
"The president is in the margin which allows to request a recount and we will do it immediately,"
he said in a statement.
"A matter of states"
Because, as so often in the United States, each state has its own rules.
“The recount is a state affair,”
says Bernadette Meyler, professor of law at Stanford University.
Trump will therefore make his request directly to Wisconsin and then each state has its own rules for authorizing this recount and the method used to count the votes ”.
There are two types of procedures in the United States: the automatic recount and the one performed at the request of a candidate.
In the first case, it is carried out as soon as the results between the two candidates are too tight.
The margin differs from state to state, it is 0.5% or less for North Dakota, for example, 0.1% or less in Arizona when Michigan counts for its number of votes and triggers this procedure when the difference between the two candidates is less than 2000 votes.
Wisconsin does not set up an automatic recount but it can be requested by the loser if the margin between the two candidates is less than or equal to 1%, which for the moment is the case
.
It remains to be seen whether all the votes will be recounted or only those of certain constituencies.
In the case of automatic recounts, the first option is often preferred.
In the second case, the latter can be partial according to the requests of the candidate.
Joe Biden could, however, demand that the recount of constituencies not chosen by the Trump camp also be carried out.
Donald Trump must however wait for the results to be finalized, which is not expected for several weeks.
Once this step is completed, states send their results to the Federal Election Commission.
Donald Trump will then have three days after sending the results to the Commission - which must validate all the results on December 1 - to make his request, if he remains within the 1% margin.
Nothing is less certain since all the votes have not yet been counted.
Moreover, if Donald Trump succeeds and Joe Biden wins with a margin greater than 0.25%, it will be up to the American president and not in Wisconsin, to finance the procedure.
A long and complex procedure
It remains to be seen which method will be used to recount the votes.
Here again everything depends on the States since some have voting machines and others do not.
The recount can therefore be done by hand, thanks to machines which scan the ballots or the voting machines can also have their own control mechanism.
And, sometimes, several methods can be used as in Florida during the presidential election of 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
The votes were recounted several times at the request of the Democrats, with machines first and then directly by hand, the score between the two candidates still being very tight.
Finally, seized by the Republicans, the Supreme Court had ruled by canceling the last recount, thus validating the victory of George W. Bush.
"In the case of Wisconsin, there is little chance of encountering the same problems since it is rare that more than 20,000 votes were badly counted,
analyzes Sanford Levinson, professor at the University of Law of Texas.
In Florida, the gap was just 537 votes.
So I think if Trump stays in the 1% margin the votes will be recounted and they will confirm Joe Biden's victory.
The Democratic candidate will then have no reason to challenge this new vote count in court ”.
However, a complication could be added for these elections given the massive use by American voters of postal voting.
The rules again differ among states, with some requiring verification of voters' signatures, sometimes manually, that accompany ballots.
An additional delay that could further lengthen the official proclamation of the winner of this 2020 presidential election.