Eliana Willis

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As the US prepared for a Joe Biden or a Donald Trump victory, Americans were forced to consider an extraordinary scenario in which Trump loses, but refuses to concede.
The president has suggested he may not accept the results of the 2020 election enough times to prompt alarm over whether he may actually be serious.
Over the past six months Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power, when asked, and has claimed he will only lose if the election is rigged.
Trump displayed the same non-commitment in 2016, but this year an expectation of delays in the result gives the president more scope to claim election results can’t be trusted, or even to claim victory before enough votes are counted.
Back in July, Trump seemed to be laying the ground for potentially repudiating the vote. In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, largely remembered for Wallace confronting Trump with the “very hard” cognitive test the president claimed to have taken – the test required the sitter to identify an elephant, an alligator and a snake – Wallace asked Trump if he would accept the election results.
“I have to see,” Trump said. “Look – I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no.”
On other occasions he was happy to bring up the question himself.
“The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” Trump told the crowd at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in August. “Remember that. That’s the only way we’re going to lose this election.”
The president repeated the message in a rare White House news conference in September, and during the first presidential debate a week later.
But how real is the threat of Trump refusing to accept the results?
Well, the circumstances of hosting an election in the midst of a pandemic make it more of a possibility than in a normal election.
The changes to voting habits have made it easier for Trump to level baseless accusations of fraud, and even create a scenario where he could prematurely declare himself the winner.
Record numbers of Americans have voted early, with a significant proportion doing so by mail. The increased number of mail-in ballots, in particular, could mean it takes polling workers longer to count – and announce – the results.
As some election experts have pointed out, the US could find itself in an election week, not night. If Trump finds himself in the lead early in some states, there is a chance he could declare himself the victor, before enough votes have been counted to be certain who has won.
The likelihood of the president finding himself in an early lead is exacerbated by the trend for Democrat votes to come in later, as votes from urban areas, which tend to be more Democratic-minded, take longer to count than those from more Republican areas. An academic study has shown how “overtime votes” – votes counted in the days after an election – have in the last 20 years shifted in favour of the Democratic candidate.
overtime votes
In the Florida elections for Senate and governor in 2018, both Republican candidates’ early leads shrank in the days after the vote, as mail-in ballots were counted. As Trump watched the Democratic candidates narrow the gap, he attempted to intervene.
“The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged,” Trump tweeted.
“An honest vote count is no longer possible – ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!”
Exploiting confusion
The potential for confusion, which Trump could potentially exploit, is exacerbated by laws that prevent early processing of ballots. Some key swing states – including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – are only allowed to begin opening and counting mail-in ballots on election day.
Doing so as officials also hold an in-person election could lead to a delay in announcing results – opening the window further for a candidate to potentially, and wrongly, claim an early victory.
Away from vote counting, Trump’s rhetoric around voting fraud could also confuse matters. The president has urged his supporters to go to the polls, and in September a group of Trump backers supporters intimidated early voters at a polling location in Fairfax, Virginia.
There is also the threat of legal action against states, as lawyers could attempt to rule ballots, particularly mail-in ballots, illegitimate.
Post-election litigation is normal in the US, and includes issues such as allowing a poll site to remain open for two extra hours because its machines broke down in the afternoon.
Franita Tolson, a University of Southern California law professor, said these mistakes are more dangerous because of the president’s rhetoric about fraud.
“We will be in a particularly vulnerable spot because the president has spent months and days talking about how the system is rife with voter fraud and it’s rigged and it’s illegitimate and all these other things,” Tolson said.
“It’s hard to not confuse election mistakes with deliberate election irregularities.”
Some experts, however, believe Trump’s rhetoric has encouraged early voting and that chances have actually risen that a clear result will emerge, if not on election night, then in the following days.
And if there is a clear result, Trump’s chances of plausibly “stealing the election” – using the confusion of the pandemic as cover – vastly diminish.
It has also been pointed out that, if lawsuits drag on past 20 January, preventing a victor from being declared, neither Trump nor Biden would be sworn in as president. In that scenario, the law is pretty clear:
“If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.”
That would mean Nancy Pelosi, as speaker of the House, would assume the presidency – presumably not an eventuality Trump has in mind.

The barricade scenario
In the unlikely event that Trump, still refusing to accept his loss despite Biden having been ruled the victor, barricades himself inside the White House and physically will not leave office, it’s not immediately clear who would be in charge of removing him.
Biden, back in June, said the military would remove the by-now-former president. He told the Daily Show: “I promise you, I’m absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”
The military seems to have other ideas, however.
Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chief of staffs and the country’s top military officer, has said service members would not get involved in the transfer of power. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law US courts and the US Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the US Military,” Milley said. “We will not turn our backs on the constitution of the United States.”
Clearly Trump would be removed somehow – at some point he surely would have to leave of his own accord – but Americans will be hoping this hypothetical does not come to pass.
As Trump likes to say: “We’ll see what happens.”
With additional reporting by Amanda Holpuch More

As the presidential election campaign drew to a close, Biden and Trump conducted their final rallies. In Pennsylvania Joe Biden welcomed Lady Gaga to the stage to perform as well as have her say on the current president. ‘Now is your chance to vote against Donald Trump, a man who believes his fame gives him the right to grab one of your daughters, or sisters, or mothers or wives by any part of their bodies.’ Elsewhere, the singer-songwriter John Legend performed and spoke passionately about his vote for Biden. In Michigan, Trump wrapped up proceedings with further digs at Biden, adding: ‘This is not the crowd of somebody who is going to lose the state of Michigan’
Lady Gaga attacks Trump’s ‘grab’ remarks at Biden rally
US election day 2020: Trump and Biden supporters vote – live updates More

The United States is hardly an autocracy; it might be better described as a flawed democracy. Yet its president, Donald Trump, behaves a lot like an autocrat – and it’s worth remembering, as the election looms, that autocratic leaders do not like to give up their power.
Obviously, few autocrats are willing to relinquish the benefits that accompany political office. But there is another, more important, reason they often try to retain power at almost any cost, even after losing elections or completing their terms. After two decades of researching and writing about autocratic politics in the Middle East, I call this the autocrat’s dilemma: losing power can expose autocrats to accountability, prosecution and potential jail time. As a result, autocrats are often willing to break laws, rig elections, create chaos and even use violence to retain power.
If Trump loses the election, there may be calls to investigate and prosecute him for possible crimes involving obstruction of justice, violating the emolument clause of the constitution, and/or tax fraud, among others. Citizen Trump would face investigation without the luxury of “executive privilege” or the legal chicanery of the attorney general, William Barr, who has acted more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s top law enforcement official, to protect him. Accordingly, Trump has even more reason to lie, cheat and sow discord in order to retain office, because losing the White House could land him in court or even behind bars.
Although special prosecutor Robert Mueller did not produce a smoking gun proving Trump conspired with Russia in the 2016 election, he clearly stated that the investigation did not exonerate Trump of wrongdoing. After the investigation, over a thousand former federal prosecutors from both parties signed a letter stating that Trump’s conduct as described in the investigation would warrant “multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice” were it not for the Office of Legal Counsel’s policy of not indicting a sitting president.
More recent criticisms of Mueller from top aides within the investigation allege Mueller did not go far enough in exposing collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. At the very least, there is a strong case that Trump obstructed the investigation. After he leaves office there will be vocal calls to get to the bottom of Russian election interference, his campaign’s alleged collusion, and to hold the former president accountable for obstruction of justice. The outcome could very well be a subpoena for the ex-president or even an indictment.
Allegations of campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniels affair and financial irregularities regarding the president’s inauguration could also expose Trump to legal troubles. But perhaps the most likely reason Trump will end up in court after leaving office concerns his taxes. Trump’s recently revealed tax filings expose a series of ethically dubious and possibly illegal activities. If he loses in November, citizen Trump will likely face increasing pressure from agencies such as the IRS and the New York state attorney general’s office.
Trump’s tax filings are brimming with shady dealings. In addition to not paying federal income tax in 10 of the 15 years preceding his election – and paying a mere $750 a year in 2016 and 2017 – Trump received a $72.9m refund from the IRS in 2010 after claiming more than a billion dollars in earlier losses. The massive refund is the subject of an ongoing IRS audit; an adverse outcome could force Trump to return the money, which, with penalties and interest, might total more than $100m.
Trump’s tax filings include other dubious and possibly illegal practices. He paid his daughter Ivanka over $700,000 in “consulting fees” while she was a salaried employee of the Trump Organization. Such high-dollar “business expenses” not only benefited Ivanka, they reduced Trump’s own tax liability.
An even bigger deduction concerns Trump’s Seven Springs estate an hour’s drive from New York. In addition to claiming a $21m tax deduction for not developing most of the 230-acre property (known as a conservation easement), Trump claimed the estate was an investment and not a personal residence, allowing him to deduct more than $2m in property taxes as business expenses. Yet Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr lived on the compound and the Trump Organization’s official webpage describes it as “a retreat for the Trump family”.

Trump’s personal debt raises different sorts of questions about potential national security vulnerabilities that arise from a sitting president owing hundreds of millions of dollars to creditors. And the massive debts are another reason why Trump desperately wants to remain in the White House. The president owes over $300m in personally backed loans to Deutsche Bank, Ladder Capital and possibly other creditors, which mature in the next four years. If he were unable to pay back or refinance the loans, Deutsche Bank and Ladder could, although it’s unlikely, take legal action against him. As long as he remains president, however, neither lender would probably call the loans and risk forcing a sitting president into personal bankruptcy.
Trump desperately wants to retain the presidency – not to “keep America Great” but to protect himself from future prosecution. His embrace of white supremacists and his calls to supporters to monitor polling places on election day (and intimidate Biden voters in the process) is an attempt to engineer an election victory through force. And by disputing the election’s integrity he is inciting post-election violence: another tactic with the same intended goal.
When past presidents have lost re-election, they often return to their home states to plan presidential libraries, establish philanthropic foundations and give well-compensated corporate speeches. Trump’s post-presidency could look very different. This vote is not simply about an incumbent president standing for re-election: it is about two starkly different futures for Donald Trump.
Samer S Shehata is an associate professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma More

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In a presidential race with an extraordinary number of moving parts, election day finds Pennsylvania under intensifying scrutiny as the place where it could all come together – or fall spectacularly apart.
The state and its 20 electoral college votes are sitting at the center of a perfect storm. Polls show one of the tightest races among the battleground states between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Models project Pennsylvania as the state most likely, when it tips, to take the entire election with it.
The state also overhauled its election laws last year and is allowing no-excuse mail-in voting for the first time. There could be as many as 10 times as many mail-in votes as there were in 2016, Kathy Boockvar, the state’s top election official, said on Sunday.
Pennsylvania law also prohibits election officials from processing mail-in ballots until election day, which means it could take days to know the winner in the state, leaving a window for Trump to claim victory before all the votes are counted. Boockvar has said she’s confident the majority of votes will be counted by Friday.
It’s possible that the entire national election could encounter a physical bottleneck in Philadelphia, the state’s most populous city. Every mail-in ballot in the city – as many as 400,000 – is to be counted inside a cavernous convention center downtown using new equipment and newly trained staff observing social distancing measures. More

All American elections determine the character of the country for the next four years. And they have a lot to say about what the world will feel like too – that’s what it means to be a superpower. But this election may determine the flavor of the next four millennia – maybe the next 40. That’s because time is the one thing we can’t recover, and time is the one thing we’ve just about run out of in the climate fight. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2018 report made it clear that we had until 2030 to make fundamental transformations in our energy system – which they defined as cutting by half the amount of carbon that we pour into the atmosphere. Read that sentence again. Because it carries deep political implications. Very few of the problems that government deals with are time limited in quite the same fashion. Issues like housing or education or healthcare last throughout our lifetimes, and we take bites out of them when we can, hopefully moving two steps forward for every one we retreat.
But climate change isn’t like that. If we don’t solve it soon, we will not solve it because we will move past tipping points from which we have no retreat. Some we’ve passed already: the news that Greenland is now in an irreversible process of melt should remind us that the biggest things on our planet can shift in the course of a very few human years.
Electing Donald Trump the first time cost us dearly. The momentum coming out of the Paris climate accord was completely undercut by the administration’s insistence on rolling back environmental laws, favoring the oil industry, and removing the US from international negotiations. But at least for the moment some of that momentum still exists: in the last few weeks we’ve watched the Chinese make new pledges and the state of California announce a prospective end to the era of internal combustion. A Biden administration can join in those efforts; indeed it can lead them. Vice president Kamala Harris has announced that one of her first acts would be to convene a meeting of high-emitting nations, perhaps spurring more of them to ratchet up their ambition in anticipation of the next UN meetings in Scotland in 2021.
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But four more years of Trump and all-out climate denial? If the world’s largest economy is acting as a brake on climate progress, rather than accelerator, progress will be lurching at best. There will be no way to put any kind of pressure on leaders like Russia’s Putin or Brazil’s Bolsonaro. The effective chance to halt the rise in temperature at anything like the targets envisioned in the Paris Accords will slip by forever. And the job of future presidents will increasingly involve responding to disasters that it’s no longer possible to prevent. The one degree celsius that we’ve already increased the planet’s temperature has taken us into what is effectively a new geological era, one markedly less hospitable to human beings. But it still bears some resemblance to the world that our civilizations emerged from. If we value those civilizations then a vote for Joe Biden isn’t really about the next four years. It’s about the long march of time that stretches out ahead of us. And about every creature and human being that will live in those misbegotten years.
Bill McKibben is an author and Schumann distinguished scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College, Vermont. His most recent book is Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? More

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It seemed like the nightmare of 2016 all over again.
On 21 October, less than two weeks before election day, US intelligence and law enforcement officials convened a last-minute press conference to warn that foreign adversaries were once again interfering in American democracy. Iran was spreading false tales about “allegedly fraudulent ballots” and sending spoofed emails purporting to contain threats from the Proud Boys, “designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump”, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence. Meanwhile, both Russia and Iran had obtained access to voter information that could be used to “cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy”, he warned.
It was everything that Democrats and disinformation experts have been warning about for the last four years, except, well, not quite.
The email operation had been relatively small and immediately debunked, while voter roll information is either public or easy to obtain. Senior intelligence officials quickly raised doubts about Ratcliffe’s emphasis on the threat from Iran over Russia and questioned whether his motives for the public announcement were political, the New York Times reported.
“It was very difficult to see those men in suits talking about interference in the election when the White House is the one interfering with the election,” said Claire Wardle, the executive director of First Draft, a group that researches and combats disinformation.
After all, when it comes to intimidating voters or inciting social unrest, nothing has had more impact than the constant drumbeat of lies and disinformation from Donald Trump. Years of preparation by the press, social media platforms, and civil society groups for a foreign interference campaign against the US electoral process have been upended by the bizarre reality that the biggest threat to American democracy right now is almost certainly the commander-in-chief, and that his primary mode of attack is a concerted disinformation campaign.
Because how much impact can a few thousand faked emails telling voters in Florida and Alaska to “vote for Trump or else” have on voters compared with Trump directly ordering the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist street gang, to “stand back and stand by” before a television audience of 73 million people? And what kind of false tale of voter fraud could Iran possibly seed that could undermine Americans’ faith in the electoral process more than the disinformation about voter fraud and mail-in ballots coming straight from the White House and Trump’s campaign?
“‘Don’t trust the electoral system, don’t trust the CDC, don’t trust your neighbor because they’re probably antifa, don’t trust the left,’” Wardle said of Trump’s re-election message. “It’s not about persuading people one way or the other, it’s about making them scared and causing confusion and chaos,” she added.
“The media’s been obsessed with Russians under the bed, but to have the president of the United States telling people in the US that they can’t trust the results of the election – Putin could only dream of that kind of thing.”
Social media tactics
Russia’s disinformation campaign in the 2016 presidential election had two main vectors: a social media campaign to sow division and distrust among voters, and a “hack and leak” operation that resulted in the theft and publication of emails and documents stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That hack and leak operation was incredibly successful, with caches of stolen material proving irresistible both for the mainstream press and for conservative activists and conspiracy theorists.
The 2020 iteration of the hack and leak tactic – Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani pushing dubious emails and text messages supposedly obtained from a hard drive linked to Joe Biden’s son Hunter – has been something of a damp squib, however. “You don’t see the same kind of credulous, knee-jerk out-of-control amplification that you saw in 2016,” said Whitney Phillips, a professor at Syracuse University and author of The Oxygen of Amplification, a report examining how the press served the purposes of media manipulators, trolls and hate groups in 2016. The top newspapers have debunked and deflated Giuliani’s claims, and the idea of the pilfered hard drive has failed to capture the public’s interest in the same way that troves of stolen emails did.
But while the Trump re-election campaign may have failed to recapture the magic of 2016 when it comes to hacked emails, the president has taken Russia’s 2016 social media playbook and supercharged it with the power of the White House.
“I’m sure that there is some foreign influence stuff happening and we might know more about it later,” said Phillips. “But so much of the pollution is trickling down from the White House itself, and people have been absolutely overwhelmed with falsehoods and confusion over Covid and ballots … When people get overwhelmed, they either fight or flee. [Trump] is making it almost impossible for people not to get totally burned out and disgusted.” More

In the final hours before election day, one of Donald Trump’s closing messages to Americans is an exaggerated threat: that a Joe Biden presidency will result in a national Covid-19 lockdown.
Speaking in Iowa on Sunday, the president said the election was a “choice between a deadly Biden lockdown … or a safe vaccine that ends the pandemic”.
Coronavirus cases are surging in the US and most battleground states are particularly badly affected. On Friday, the total case count surpassed 9m while the daily count set a new world record, at about 100,000. On Sunday 81,493 new cases were reported, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 447 new deaths. Nearly 231,000 people have died.
In Iowa, painting a dark and dystopian vision, Trump told a crowd of closely packed supporters, many not wearing masks: “The Biden plan will turn America into a prison state locking you down, while letting the far-left rioters roam free to loot and burn.”
That came after he told a rally in Pennsylvania, another swing state, there would be “no school, no graduations, no weddings, no Thanksgivings, no Christmas, no Easters, no Fourth of Julys” under a Biden administration.
In an interview in August, Biden was asked if he would shut the US down if scientists said he should do so. He said: “I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists.” Biden has since clarified that he was referring to whether he would follow advice, saying: “There’s going to be no need, in my view, to be able to shut down the whole economy.”
In October, Biden said: “I don’t think there’s a need to lock down.”
If national and battleground state polling proves accurate and he wins on Tuesday, Biden has pledged to introduce a “Beat Covid-19” plan that includes a national mask mandate, a $25bn vaccine plan guaranteeing free access to every American, improved test-and-trace efforts, and help for schools and small businesses.
On Sunday, he told a drive-in event in Philadelphia: “The truth is, to beat the virus, we first have to beat Donald Trump – he is the virus!”
The former vice-president added: “When America is heard, I believe the message is going to be clear: It’s time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home. We’re done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the hate.”
Trump has repeated his anti-lockdown message across his social media accounts and campaign ads.
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On Twitter, he wrote: “Biden wants to LOCKDOWN our Country, maybe for years. Crazy!” A campaign ad, entitled “Don’t let Joe Biden lock down our economy”, places footage from the August interview when Biden said he would shut down if scientists advised alongside news footage from lockdowns in Europe and scenes of protest.
With very few voters still undecided, Larry Sabato, director of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Trump’s approach was not about converting voters – rather it is about “revving up his base”.
“He is depending on a tremendous turnout tomorrow, and he may get it,” Sabato told the Guardian. “The whole point of it is to remind voters, or the voters remaining, that Trump’s ace card is the economy, and that he’s determined to restore it – even if it means, frankly, more infections and deaths.
“He’s made a clear choice and Biden has chosen the other path, which is to do what Europe’s doing – not necessarily a complete lockdown, but a substantial lockdown and a mask mandate, all the things that Trump and his supporters won’t like. He’s trying to rev them up. And they’re revved up.”

Citing recent incidents in Texas, where Trump supporters appeared to try to force a Biden campaign bus off the road, and in New York and New Jersey on Sunday, when hundreds of cars flying Trump flags blocked traffic, Sabato said: “It’s shocking, really. We’ve never had anything like this … it just suggests what’s going to happen if he [Trump] loses.”
At a midnight rally in Florida, Trump threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert. To chants of “fire Fauci”, he said: “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election. I appreciate the advice. I appreciate it.”In an interview with the Washington Post, Fauci said the US should prepare for “a whole lot of hurt” and predicted a winter of 100,000-plus cases a day and more deaths.
“It’s not a good situation,” he said. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.” More

Key events

Show

10.22am EST10:22
Trump again says supporters in Texas caravan ‘did nothing wrong’

8.39am EST08:39
Coronavirus surging in every key swing state as voters head to polls – ABC News

6.22am EST06:22
Poll: Biden holds 5-point to 7-point lead over Trump in crucial state of Pennsylvania

5.40am EST05:40
Pennsylvania governor to urge patience around election results in new statewide ad

5.19am EST05:19
Morning Consult final poll: Biden has national lead of 8 points over Trump

Live feed

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10.22am EST10:22

Trump again says supporters in Texas caravan ‘did nothing wrong’

Donald Trump has once again defended his supporters who participated in a caravan that swarmed a Biden campaign bus driving down a Texas highway on Friday.
Responding to a tweet noting the FBI is investigating the incident, Trump said, “This story is FALSE. They did nothing wrong. But the ANTIFA Anarchists, Rioters and Looters, who have caused so much harm and destruction in Democrat run cities, are being seriously looked at!”

Donald J. Trump
(@realDonaldTrump)
This story is FALSE. They did nothing wrong. But the ANTIFA Anarchists, Rioters and Looters, who have caused so much harm and destruction in Democrat run cities, are being seriously looked at! https://t.co/3pmbMllPWS

November 2, 2020

The FBI confirmed yesterday that it was investigating the highway incident, after videos of the caravan sparked widespread safety concerns.
The president previously appeared to discourage the FBI from investigating the matter, saying in a tweet last night, “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong. Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”

10.18am EST10:18

Donald Trump is en route to Fayetteville, North Carolina, for his first of five campaign rallies on the last day before election day.

Mark Knoller
(@markknoller)
Pres climbs steps to board Air Force One in Miami as he embarks on last day of 5 campaign rallies in NC, PA, WI and 2 in MI, including final rally tonight in Grand Rapids, just like in 2016, that let to his election. pic.twitter.com/T32GePkC84

November 2, 2020

The president was supposed to hold a rally in Fayetteville last Thursday, but it was postponed due to weather concerns.
After the North Carolina rally, Trump will head to Scranton, Pennsylvania, before traveling on to Michigan and Wisconsin.

10.05am EST10:05

Richard Luscombe reports for the Guardian:
A doctored video purporting to show Joe Biden addressing a rally and forgetting which state he was in was viewed more than 1.1m times on social media before it was removed from Twitter. More