Trump may be like Moo-Moo - he won't go when he loses

SBS (Aus):

What happens if Donald Trump refuses to concede the US election?

Donald Trump addresses the crowd in Gastonia, North Carolina, this week. Source: Anadolu/Getty Images

If Donald Trump loses the US election next month, there’s every chance he won’t go quietly. Here’s what could happen if he decides to fight the result

Last month, US President Donald Trump sparked controversy by refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the 3 November election.

At a 24 September White House press conference, Mr Trump was asked directly whether he would yield power if he lost.

“Well we’re going to have to see what happens,” he said. “You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster.”

“But people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transition of power?” the reporter asked.

“Get rid of the ballots and we’ll have a very peaceful – there won’t be a transfer, frankly - there’ll be a continuation,” Mr Trump said.

Critics took this statement to mean one thing: if the President goes down, he's not leaving without a fight.

What is Trump’s issue with mail-in voting?

Over the past few months, Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed mail-in voting will lead to widespread voter fraud.

The president, who votes by mail himself, told his supporters at a rally that people should test the theory by sending in votes by post and then going to vote in person on election day.

Mail-in voting fraud, in theory, refers to people duplicating their votes, creating fake ballots or voting under a different name altogether. But studies show mail-in voter fraud is extremely rare.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute at New York University Law School, has estimated the risk of mail ballot fraud to be between 0.00004 and 0.0009 per cent.

Ellen Weintraub, the commissioner of the US Federal Election Commission, has also said the claim is completely unfounded.

"There is no basis for the conspiracy theory that #VoteByMail will lead to a rigged election," she has been tweeting daily as part of her election countdown.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has also concluded that it’s a rare occurrence.

“There are two major features of VBM [voting by mail] that raise these concerns. First, the ballot is cast outside the public eye, and thus the opportunities for coercion and voter impersonation are greater,” material on its Election Data and Science Lab website reads.

“Second, the transmission path of ballots is not as secure as traditional in-person ballots. These concerns relate both to ballots being intercepted and ballots being requested without the voter’s permission.

“As with all forms of voter fraud, documented instances of fraud related to mail voting are rare.”

Mail-in voting is now more topical than ever, with people less likely to vote at polling booths amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US has recorded more than 220,000 deaths and more than eight million cases since the pandemic began.

What could Trump do if he loses the election?

There’s every chance we won’t actually have a winner on 3 November (4 November in Australia & Malaysia).

If Mr Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in a key swing state, the race could take days or even weeks to fully resolve. Mail-in votes take longer to count than in-person voting.

According to Professor Simon Jackman, CEO at The University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre, the election isn’t really over until the winner is inaugurated in January.

"If we're talking about the end, and the end being that Congress has certified the result of the Electoral College … at that point, there's no more cards left to play," he told SBS News. "At that point, that's when the election is really, really over in a constitutional sense. But that's not until January."

In other words, there's plenty of time for legal manoeuvring from when the polls close up until inauguration day.

"Frankly, there's an awful lot of legal manoeuvring happening now, more than we've ever seen in an American election," Professor Jackman said. "And so there's plenty of room now through till the election night for postal ballots to be challenged and for various aspects of the election to be challenged in court."

What will Biden do?

Professor Jackman said the same is true for Mr Biden. “Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying Biden should not yield an inch. And by the same token, if Trump were to win overwhelmingly, I think Biden has a choice to make as well," he said.

"Is there a graceful concession? Or is there a call to arms - both legally and on the streets as well?”

If Joe Biden scrapes a win, Donald Trump's legal team will almost certainly contest the results.

If there’s a clear landslide win for either candidate and it’s clear that a sufficient number of swing states aren’t close, a legal battle is less likely, he said.

“If we’re not in close territory, I think people will put their legal ammunition away and go home and call it a day.”

If the race is looking close though, Professor Jackman said we could see multiple states launching legal challenges at once, with the Supreme Court potentially coming in to settle the matter.

And judging by the polling debacle from the last election, Mr Biden and Mr Trump could be neck-and-neck. 

What do the polls say?

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Mr Trump’s lead over Mrs Clinton was infamously underestimated across 13 swing states. Mr Trump won eight of those 13 states, with a poll average picking the wrong winner in five.

A large research project by the USSC compiled data from polling averages in all the swing states going back 120 days before the election and compared them to the same data from 2016.

Professor Jackman said the goal was to provide a key point of reference this time around, to get a more accurate reading of how the 2020 vote might go.

Based on that research, the 2020 polls currently point to a Biden win, with him expected to take comfortable leads in key swing states including Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan.

By these projections, Mr Biden should win the election by a comfortable margin, with 334 Electoral College votes to Mr Trump’s 204.

Professor Jackman said Florida, which is among the states that counts its votes on the night of the election, will be perhaps the most important battleground states to watch.

“By mid-afternoon, Australia time, all eyes will be on Florida,” he said. “Because if Trump can’t win Florida, he’s almost certainly not going to win the election. And I think that’ll tell us a lot.”

Under the 2020 projections, corrected by 2016 error, Mr Biden is expected to take Florida.

Could we see riots if Trump loses?

Professor Jackman said it’s quite possible we could see some of Mr Trump’s supporter base taking to the streets in protest if he loses the election. But, he said, a lot of it will depend on how Mr Trump chooses to respond in the immediate aftermath.

“If it’s reasonably clear Trump has lost on election night, it’s whether he does the usual thing that’s associated as being part of a peaceful transition of power, and that’s the concession speech,” he said. “If he does that, it’s likely protests will be diminished.

“If, instead, Trump says 'the result isn’t clear and we suspect widespread fraud', it’s all hands on deck with securing legal challenges.”

The latter may be more likely, judging by how vocal Mr Trump has been on the issue of voter fraud.

He used his first televised election debate with Mr Biden on 30 September to declare the election "rigged".

"This is going to be a fraud like you've never seen," he said.

Earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence was asked to clarify what he would do if Mr Biden was declared the winner and Mr Trump refused to accept a peaceful transfer of power.

"Well, Susan, first and foremost, I think we’re going to win this election ..." he responded to the moderator at his debate with Mr Biden's running mate Kamala Harris, avoiding the question. 

It left many thinking there is every chance this election fight is going to get messier.