What If Trump Refuses To Accept A Loss? Could It Lead To Civil Unrest?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has never been one to abide by rules. Four years ago he cried fraud and did not accept the presidential election result and there could be a possibility of him doing the same this time around after the November 5 election.

This time the only difference will be that Trump will not have his presidential levers of power which he had in the 2020 elections. Moreover, new laws have been implemented in the US to make it more difficult to influence election results.

THE DENIAL

“If I lose – I’ll tell you what, it’s possible. Because they cheat. That’s the only way we’re gonna lose, because they cheat,” Trump said at a Michigan rally in September. Trump’s team filed over 60 lawsuits, but none of them succeeded in altering or delaying the vote count.

After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his supporters launched an unprecedented effort to overturn the results. This endeavor involved spreading baseless claims of election fraud and rigging through the “big lie” propaganda technique.

CIVIL UNREST?

In 2021, Republican supporters charged the US Capitol in an effort to stop Mike Pence from confirming Joe Biden’s victory.

Any effort by Trump to suggest the election was rigged could potentially lead to civil unrest, as it did on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to Reuters, experts who monitor violent groups and militia, such as Peter Montgomery of the People For the American Way, a liberal think tank, say they are less concerned about a violent response from these groups than they are about threats against election workers counting votes. There also could be violent demonstrations in the capitals of battleground states, Montgomery said.

Still, Trump and his allies have been crafting a blueprint for months to cry if he loses on November 5th.

Following the November 5 election, Republicans and Democrats anticipate a potentially lengthy vote-counting process that may extend well beyond Election Day, as mail-in ballots are processed and other votes are carefully verified and tallied.

In case it seems like Trump is losing, the delay in counting will give him a window to claim fraud while sowing seeds of doubt about election officials and although he has been threatening to put election workers and public workers behind bars, he would need to win the election first in order for that to be materialised.

BUILD-UP IN KEY BATTLEGROUNDS

In anticipation of potential election controversies, Republicans have preemptively filed more than 100 lawsuits in crucial battleground states. These lawsuits seek to establish a basis for post-election challenges, including claims – thus far unsupported by evidence – of widespread voting by non-citizens.

Both major parties are gearing up to deploy thousands of trained volunteers, known as poll watchers, to keep a close eye on voting and vote counting during the upcoming election. These volunteers will be tasked with reporting any irregularities they spot. However, some voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm, worried that Republican poll watchers might disrupt the process, even though the Republican Party noted that the volunteers have been instructed to abide by the law.

States must submit their election results by December, ahead of the Electoral College meeting. Electors will then cast their votes, which are subsequently sent to Congress for formal verification in January, marking the final step in confirming the presidential election outcome.

DELAYS AND MISSED DEADLINES

Efforts to contest election results, fueled by Trump’s influence, may cause certification delays and missed deadlines. This could provide grounds for Republican lawmakers to dispute the outcome, with uncertain legal consequences due to potentially biased judicial decisions.

In response to Trump’s 2020 election challenges, Congress enacted reforms to prevent similar disruptions. The new law clarifies the vice president’s limited role, prohibiting them from delaying certification or discarding state results, as Trump had urged Pence to do.

The measure also requires that an objection to a state’s electoral count cannot be brought unless one-fifth of the members of each house of Congress agrees. After that, it takes a majority vote in each house for an objection to be found valid.

In the unexpected outcome that enough electoral votes are tossed so that neither candidate reaches the majority, the newly elected US House of Representatives would choose the next president.