After a long and exhausting campaign season, Election Day is finally upon us, but anyone hoping for a quick resolution will probably be disappointed. Polls currently show Kamala Harris and Donald Trump running neck-and-neck in battleground states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, and it could be at least a few days before we know the next president of the United States.
These delays set the stage for a potential repeat of the 2020 election. Four years ago, Trump led the polls on election night in swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, but a record number of mail-in ballots erased that lead over the following days — a phenomenon since dubbed the “red mirage” or the “blue shift.” The Associated Press needed three and a half days to officially declare Joe Biden the winner.
Trump pointed to this sudden reversal in his claims that the election had been “stolen,” despite the fact that he had explicitly told his supporters not to vote by mail, ensuring that the majority of mailed ballots would support his opponent. Trump and Republicans have since embraced early in-person voting and mail-in ballots, but Democrats remain more likely to vote by mail, thus setting us up for another potential red mirage.
The Republican National Committee has been involved in more than 130 election lawsuits in 26 states.
According to some reports, Trump plans to exploit the situation and follow a similar strategy Tuesday night. In mid-October, Rolling Stone spoke with several conservative attorneys connected to Trump who suggested that the Republican candidate intends to declare the election is being “rigged” or “stolen” as early as election night by pointing to slow counts of mail-in ballots. Speaking to NBC News in October, Trump allies said we also shouldn’t be surprised if the former president declares victory before all the votes are counted.
This year, Trump will have far more institutional support from the Republican Party, which has been busy laying the groundwork for the next “Big Lie.” The Republican National Committee has been involved in more than 130 election lawsuits in 26 states and has recruited 5,000 volunteer attorneys who will be scattered across battleground states. In addition to lawyers, the RNC claims to have recruited more than 200,000 poll watchers — four times as many as in 2020. In 2020, Republican poll watchers served as the former president’s eyes and ears on the ground and produced many of the spurious allegations later used to dispute the results. To bolster this year’s poll monitoring program, the RNC has set up what it calls election integrity hotlines in every swing state, where lawyers will stand by to receive reports of fraud or misconduct, which they will use to flood the courts with lawsuits.
If he loses, Trump will probably leverage this proactive litigation to discredit the election. Republicans and allied groups are behind the majority of the nearly 100 election lawsuits already filed in seven battleground states. These have attempted to purge voter rolls, restrict mail-in ballots and add various hurdles to the voting process. While they have mostly failed in the courts, they have succeeded in sowing doubt.
Democrats have not been standing by while Republicans plot the next “Big Lie.” In anticipation of the coming torrent of post-election lawsuits, the Harris campaign and Democratic Party have built their own expansive legal team, with a national network of about 10,000 lawyers who, the Wall Street Journal reports, are preparing thousands of pages of legal drafts that can be deployed quickly.
In addition to lawsuits, Democratic lawyers will be watching for intimidation and harassment of voters or election workers at polling stations. The Harris campaign has formed voter protection teams and mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers who will be stationed outside polling places to help voters fix any errors on their ballots. Nonprofit groups, including the nonpartisan Common Cause, have also recruited thousands of volunteers to aid in those efforts.
Facing an unprecedented number of threats, election officials are stepping up security and planning for possible disruptions — even violence. A poll from the Brennan Center for Justice found that nearly 90% of local election officials have taken action to improve election security, with measures including installing bulletproof glass and security cameras, and equipping workers with panic buttons. In some counties, poll workers have trained for emergency situations, learning how to de-escalate tense situations and respond to harassment and threats. Officials hope those steps will safeguard both election staff and the process while minimizing disruptions that fueled claims of a stolen election in 2020.
Four years ago, the country was in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and nearly half of the electorate voted by mail. This year has seen an overall drop in mail-in voting, while officials in most states can begin counting mail-in ballots before Election Day, which should accelerate the process.
The Harris campaign has formed voter protection teams.
One notable exception to this trend is Pennsylvania, where a law requires that officials wait until Election Day to process mail-in ballots. Polls show the candidates in a statistical tie in the state. In 2020, it took nearly four days for Pennsylvania to deliver its final count. Since then, Pennsylvania Republicans have blocked attempts to change the law in the state legislature, effectively guaranteeing similar delays.
Trump has already started making baseless claims about Pennsylvania and its election officials. “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” he posted on Truth Social last week following reports that voters in the suburbs outside Philadelphia were turned away after waiting in long lines to apply for mail ballots. This particular incident occurred in part because staff at the Bucks County office had been bogged down by a pre-pandemic law passed by a Republican-controlled state legislature that makes early voting slow and arduous. Once again, however, Trump quickly turned a relatively minor incident into a major scandal.
“We caught them CHEATING BIG in Pennsylvania. Must announce and PROSECUTE, NOW!,” he claimed (falsely) the next day.
If the election doesn’t go his way, we can expect more of this Tuesday and perhaps over the next few weeks or even months. Buckle up.
The post What To Expect on Election Day appeared first on Truthdig.
