The Presidential campaign over the next few months is expected to remain close and grow even more contentious.
Between 80- to 100-million people are expected to vote by mail in this election. Millions of votes could straggle in days or weeks after the election, delaying the announcement of the winner.
If the race is close, it may take on the characteristics of the 2000 Bush vs Gore outcome in ten to twenty or more jurisdictions.
The Democrats appear to be unwilling to accept anything other than victory. Hillary Clinton has encouraged Biden simply to not concede under any circumstances.
President Trump has claimed voting by mail can’t work fairly.
Only an overwhelming victory of the popular vote and electoral college by either side might put the issue to rest. We should expect there will be litigation.
It’s already been contended that the Biden camp has already hired 600 lawyers to contend the election outcome, if it doesn’t go his way.
According to Senator Ted Cruz in an interview on “Verdict with Ted Cruz,”
“If the race is uncertain by January 3rd, it could be thrown to Congress, which means the House of Representatives chooses the President and the Senate chooses the Vice President.
Here’s where it gets interesting. It doesn’t work by simple majority of the House. So it’s not whoever has the majority chooses the President. Rather, it’s each state gets one vote. So each congressional delegation gets one vote.
So California gets one vote. And right now, in the current Congress, I think the number is is that there are 26 Republican states – where Republicans have the majority delegation, 2 where Democrats have the majority delegation and 2 that are tied. I think Pennsylvania and Michigan are tied.
The reason Democrats can still have a majority is they can rack up huge numbers in states like California and New York, so they have more than 218, but they don’t have a majority of the states.
What that means is there’s a real incentive, if Democrats have the majority, to prevent it from going to the House.
And there is an argument, that come January 20th, if Congress hasn’t exercised its authority to select the President and select the Vice President, there is an argument that they are putting forward that Donald Trump and Mike Pence cease being President and Vice President and third in line is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House.
If they would lose otherwise, I fully expect the Democrats to do everything they can to prevent any Constitutional mechanism for having a Republican President. So I fully expect them to try to delay until January 20th and argue that Nancy Pelosi has now become President.
And we’re in such uncharted legal territory, Constitutional territory, these questions, if we get there, are going to be hotly, hotly debated.”
Remember the dangling chads?