.@realDonaldTrump has signaled strongly that he won't concede if he loses this election. I gamed out what could happen next. There are some really alarming scenarios.
vice.com/en_us/article/…
The key tipping-point Electoral College states (AZ/MI/PA/WI) all will use heavy vote by mail this election and all but AZ can't start counting ballots 'til election day means long counts expected - and Trump could lead big on election day even in states where he'll lose.
On top of that, mail ballots are a lot more likely to be rejected for technical reasons (missing signatures/envelopes/witness signatures/etc)— and a lot more likely to face litigation over whether they should count post-election.
PA, for instance, took 3 weeks to count ballots after their primary. There's only about a month before states legally have to certify their results for the electoral college. Doesn't leave much time for potential litigation...
We're already seeing isolated violence in the streets from protests. If Trump claims he's been robbed — or if the left thinks the GOP is stealing the election — that could escalate, esp. if Trump seeks to escalate it, as he did during the BLM protests.
The fact that MI, PA & WI all have Dem govs and GOP legislatures raises chances for them to certify two different slates of electors if the final count. Congress is supposed to resolve it if that happens, but laws governing what happens at that point are murky at best.
And RBG's death could matter - if fighting over ballot counts or (lord forbid) competing slates of electors winds up in the Supreme Court, either a hobbled 8-member court or one with a brand-new justice rammed through by the GOP would be arbitrating the election.
Anyways, I haven't been sleeping well the last week or so.
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