Presidential Votes Have Been Too Close To Call And Even Too Close to Count
Through the years President Trump has been in office, Americans have grown accustomed to hearing of "norms" ignored and "guardrails" broken. Trump has fulfilled his supporters' desire for an unconventional leader unbound by the sort of unwritten rules other presidents have followed.
Yet nothing may have prepared the nation for the prospect of a presidential election in which an incumbent refuses to acknowledge an apparent defeat. Nor are Americans ready for an election where no clear winner can be determined in a timely fashion and the constitutional processes for resolving the issue prove insufficient.
That scenario seems increasingly plausible, given the pandemic's impact on the voting process, the president's stated attitude and the current state of the laws governing the election of the president.
This past week, the president several times took questions about the American tradition of "peaceful transfer of power" when a president loses a bid for reelection. On Wednesday, he declined to commit to leaving office. "We'll have to see," he said, before launching an attack on the legitimacy of mailed ballots. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has record numbers of voters planning to do so by mail. Many states may not have counted all their legally submitted ballots by Election Night, or even the day after. But the president has insisted any delay past that night will be evidence of fraud.
On Thursday, Senate
