How bad could it get? America’s ugly election

Yorkminster parliament

Andrew Adonis rightly

criticised you for mocking the

idea of Parliament relocating

to York (Letters, August 22nd).

In 1963 you argued that

“nobody really believes” in

Britain’s local democracy

(“Federal Britain’s new

frontiers”, May 18th 1963). That

is as true today as it was then.

At the time you called for the

creation of a federal Britain to

be organised by regions, with

its capital, Elizabetha, located

near that northern city.

chris keating

Liverpool

---

The Economist

September 5th 2020

15

1

I

n his final

debate with Hillary Clinton

in 2016, Donald Trump refused to commit

himself to accepting the results of the com-

ing election. The following day he made his

position clearer. “I will totally accept the

results of this great and historic presiden-

tial election,” he said in mock solemnity—

before adding, with finger-wagging em-

phasis: “If I win.” The stubby finger levelled

itself at the crowd, which erupted into

cheers; the not-yet-president grinned.

President Trump went on to win with

304 Electoral College votes to Mrs Clinton’s

227, and so how he would in fact have react-

ed had things gone the other way remains a

matter of speculation. This year there ap-

pears to be a strong chance that he will not

win; 

The Economist

’s election-forecasting

model currently puts his chances at one in

seven. Mr Trump, though, denies any pos-

sibility that he could lose a fair contest:

“The only way we’re going to lose this elec-

tion is if the election is rigged,” he told his

followers in August. There can be no real

doubt that, should he indeed lose, he

would claim that the election was stolen. 

That, come November 4th, such a theft

will actually have taken place is remark-

ably unlikely. Admittedly William Evanina,

who directs the National Counterintelli-

gence and Security Centre, says that China

and Iran have joined Russia in seeking to

influence this election through covert

means, presumably emboldened by Russia

having paid little price for having done so

last time. This is a shocking development.

But even if they were all pushing in the

same direction—which is unlikely—there

is no reason to think that they could deci-

sively tip the result. America’s electoral

system is sufficiently decentralised for at-

tempts to rig the vote on a large scale to be

incredibly hard. And though voter fraud

occasionally takes place, both in-person

and by means of absentee ballots, it is

harshly punished and very rare; various

studies have found the rate to be well below

one in a million votes cast. 

But this does not mean that Mr Trump’s

protestations will be of no account. Ameri-

ca is deeply polarised, and in a few places

armed partisans have taken to the streets.

Both parties have portrayed this year’s con-

test as existentially important to America’s

future, warning that the country will be

forever altered for the worse if the other

candidate wins. The new round of foreign

interference, like the lies and fearmonger-

ing from the president himself, add both to

the stock of disinformation and the perva-

sive sense that things are not to be trusted.

As a result a significant number of Ameri-

cans of all political stripes doubt that the

election will be held fairly (see chart on

next page). On top of it all, the election is

being held during an epidemic that will, by

election day, have killed over 200,000.

In June a bipartisan group of campaign

veterans, elected officials, journalists and

academics convened by the Transition In-

tegrity Project, a group founded last year,

set about war-gaming four different possi-

ble election results: a commanding victory

for Joe Biden, a narrow victory for Mr Bi-

den, a narrow victory for Mr Trump

achieved, as his previous one was, without

a majority of the popular vote, and a result

in which, because of contested outcomes

in battleground states, the identity of the