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Presidential campaigns are already gearing up for troubled voting scenarios

2020-08-19T18:16:07.520Z


These are just a few of the many unprecedented possibilities the Trump and Biden campaigns envision in the run-up to an election that is already shaping up to be the biggest test of the system ...


Democrats question changes in the Postal Service 2:41

(CNN) - The apocalyptic scenarios of the 2020 elections are endless: dozens of lawsuits challenging state results. Claims of electoral fraud and "rigged" elections. Millions of ballots are late due to mail delays. Ballot counting extends for weeks after Election Day. A refusal to budge as opening day approaches.

Those are just a few of the many unprecedented possibilities the Trump and Biden campaigns envision in the run-up to an election that is already shaping up to be the biggest test of the American system in decades. Both campaigns have set aside millions of dollars and created large legal teams that are now immersed in contingency planning for what is expected to be a lengthy and potentially contested post-vote period, while states tabulate a flood of mail-in ballots, anticipating legal challenges in numerous states.

The U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday that it will postpone planned service changes that could affect the delivery of election mail, but criticism of the USPS 'ability to handle the increase in mail-in ballots exposed the risks of reorienting the system away from in-person voting amid the ongoing covid-19 pandemic.

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Millions of ballots are unlikely to be in the hands of election officials when the polls close on November 3, making it difficult - if not impossible - to quickly summon the states to the battlefield that will decide whether President Donald Trump or Former Vice President Joe Biden occupies the White House in January 2021. While muddling everything else about the election season, the pandemic and its expected effect on voting by mail make one thing clear: Election day will almost certainly turn in the week of the elections or even in the month of the elections.

Election officials are already asking for patience, reminding the public that waiting for the results does not mean something is wrong. But even if a delay in calling the contest is widely anticipated, it opens the door to potential chaos in the hours and days after the election, not to mention the potentially protracted and politically tense challenges to the election, and after years. of growing concern about foreign meddling, a place for doubts to grow about the integrity of American democracy itself.

"If we don't have a winner within 24 hours, there is very real potential for a national uproar and conspiracy theories to flourish, which can never be undone," said Amanda Carpenter, CNN contributor and former adviser. by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

The choice during the pandemic

The fact that it all plays out against the backdrop of the worst public health crisis in a century, when millions of voters will mail their ballots for the first time, has only amplified the feeling that this year's race is more at risk of error and disputed result.

A new CNN poll released Tuesday shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans - 64% - say they are at least somewhat concerned that changes to the rules regarding voting aimed at making it safer to vote during voting. pandemic will not prosper, while 59% worry that the changes will make it too easy for people to cast fraudulent votes. A sizable minority, 36%, say their confidence in the vote will decline if a winner cannot be determined on election night because the count is taking longer than usual.

Trump has already called this year's race the "most rigged" on record, proactively suggesting that a prolonged wait for results would be unacceptable, even though election night results are always unofficial and often change to as final ballots are counted.

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Biden and his supporters have accused the president of deliberately trying to suppress the vote, as polls show him far behind, in some cases by double digits, while his campaign has assembled a team of 600 attorneys across the country to help monitor voting problems. A senior Biden aide told CNN that the campaign has created "the largest voter protection operation ever carried out in a presidential cycle."

"If we have learned one thing from the pandemic," said the assistant, it is that "having a contingency plan is not enough. We have layers and layers and layers of contingency plans. Our programs are built with flexibility in mind to deal with any situation. "

And Democrats have begun to think, in theory at least, what it would look like if Trump loses and refuses to leave office.

Recent deployments of federal law enforcement officers in American cities have raised additional concerns about the extent to which Trump and his administration, led by Attorney General Bill Barr, could go to prevent or intimidate voters into casting their votes, a considered idea. Outlandish by many Trump allies, but serious enough that at least one electoral integrity group has conducted exercises that include the stage.

"What we are preparing for is if Donald Trump refuses to budge, and if he tries to steal this election," said Sean Eldridge, president of Stand Up America, a liberal advocacy group preparing to mobilize people around the election results. "We are concerned not only with making sure millions of Americans can vote safely this year, we are concerned about what will happen on Election Day and in the days after."

'The courts better be prepared'

The president has so far refused to explicitly state that he will accept the election results, saying that it would be foolish to state in advance a result that he has already begun to question. "I have to see," Trump said in an interview last month when asked if he would accept the election results. No, I'm not just going to say yes. I'm not going to say no, and not the last time either.

In office, Trump routinely referred to his 2016 victory as rigged because he lost the popular vote, and created a panel, eventually dissolved, to investigate baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in that contest. Now, the Trump campaign is reviving that cause, recruiting election observers in what officials say is an effort to ensure Democrats don't change voting rules to open the door to voter fraud in November.

"Democrats are working to destroy electoral integrity measures one state at a time, and there is no question that they will continue their antics from now until November and beyond," said Matthew Morgan, general counsel for the Trump campaign. "Trump's campaign fights to ensure that every valid ballot across America counts, once."

Colin Powell backs Biden 2:33 presidential bid

Numerous legal battles are already being fought across the country between parties over voting, in response to changes made by states to their vote-by-mail rules, over when a ballot can be postmarked or delivered, and even how states use mailboxes. to collect ballots. Democrats accuse Trump and the Republican National Committee of trying to suppress the vote by limiting access to help Trump win re-election.

Lawsuits for access to the vote may just be a prelude to potential legal challenges after Election Day on Nov. 3, particularly if some undecided state turns a nail bite.

"The courts had better be prepared because they will be crowded after the November elections," predicted former Republican National Committee official Mike Shields. "I think both parties are going to have attorneys ready to challenge results that don't turn out the way they want."

In a congressional hearing last month, Barr suggested that a full vote-by-mail election "substantially increases the risk of fraud," although he did not provide evidence when pressed about how foreign governments could produce counterfeit ballots, a charge that both he and the president have pointed.

"No, I don't know, but I have common sense," Barr said when asked if he had evidence.

Vote counting after Election Day

Trump and his Republican allies have focused on voting by mail, particularly in states that have adopted universal vote-by-mail rules to send ballots to all registered voters. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in several states, Red and Blue, which have conducted the majority of their elections under this mail system for years, including Utah, Oregon, and Colorado.

But states exponentially anticipate that more voters will use absentee ballots this year due to the pandemic, including sending absentee ballots or applications to all first-time registered voters. Many states accept Election Day postmarked ballots that come in later, and some do not begin counting votes sent by mail until the polls close. It all adds to possible delays in the certification of the results that already appeared during the primaries: it took more than a week for the winners to be declared in the last congressional primary elections in New York and Kentucky.

"In states that have a history of many ballots, they will be able to process these ballots very quickly and they will get results quite quickly," said David Becker, founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Research and Innovation. "But in states that are not used to counting a lot of mail ballots, states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin maybe, it can take some time to process all of those ballots correctly and make sure the election results are final."

Recent cuts made to Postal Service operations by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor, have fueled additional concerns that mail-in ballots will be delayed for days, or that ballots sent far in advance will not they will arrive on time in the states where they are to be received before Election Day. DeJoy has been swiftly called in to testify in the coming days before House and Senate committees, while a group of state attorneys general filed suit in federal court Tuesday to challenge recent USPS operational changes.

  • MORE: New Senate Report Details Alleged Russian Interference in Trump's Election

DeJoy said in a statement Tuesday that he would suspend the changes until after the election "to avoid even the appearance of any impact on the electoral mail."

If the election results linger in the air for days after Election Day, it creates a potential recipe for chaos. Democrats are particularly fearful that Trump will declare victory, especially if he leads when the sun rises on Wednesday, November 4, before millions of mail-in votes have been counted. In the CNN poll, the majority of Biden voters said they prefer to vote by mail, while about two-thirds of Trump supporters said they prefer to vote in person on Election Day.

In addition to Trump's recent spate of false claims that voting by mail is riddled with fraud and will result in a "rigged" election, he has cast doubt on the vote-by-mail count after Election Day. In the 2018 Florida Senate race, he said the state "must accept the results of election night" when then-Democratic Senator Bill Nelson narrowed the gap against his rival, Republican Rick Scott, who ultimately prevailed. And he tweeted "Call for new elections?" when Democrat Kyrsten Sinema beat Republican Martha McSally in Arizona after McSally led on election night.

Becker said a delayed election result should not be seen as a sign of fraud or trouble, but rather as one that shows that the system is working.

Be patient, it could take longer this year. That does not mean that something is wrong, it actually means the opposite, it means that the election officials are taking care of getting this right, "he said. "It is more important to be precise than to do it quickly."

2020 Elections 2020 United States Elections

Source: cnnespanol

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