# Will there even be a 2020 election? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 26, 2019, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027 "2019-11-26T20:48:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/21 "2019-11-26T23:53:28Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Why bother? The Democrats still haven’t accepted the outcome of the 2016 election. Wonderful insight! Simply marvelous! ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/22 "2019-11-27T00:19:10Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Whether Trump accepts losing an election is utterly irrelevant, any more than the Astros “accepting” that they lost the World Series to the Nats. It doesn’t need his/their acceptance. That’s just a patently ignorant response. Check out some of the elections worldwide in which the political loser refuses to accept election outcomes, or in which outcomes are contested. It ain’t pretty. I know we’re exceptional all, except that, we’re not really as exceptional as we think. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/23 "2019-11-27T00:55:40Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > That’s just a patently ignorant response. Check out some of the elections worldwide in which the political loser refuses to accept election outcomes, or in which outcomes are contested. It ain’t pretty. I know we’re exceptional all, except that, we’re not really as exceptional as we think. Smh. You and the OP would make a cute couple. Maybe you could PM him a sexy selfie? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/24 "2019-11-27T00:58:56Z")
There have been multiple U.S. Presidential elections where the loser initially refused to accept defeat. It’d be hard to top the Tilden-Hayes contest of 1876 for brouhaha, shenanigans and double-dealing. The stakes were high in that election (which effectively saw the beginning of the end for Reconstruction). Yet somehow the Republic survived. There will be a 2020 election, despite the paranoid ravings of Trumpians and anti-Trumpians. I just wish I could go to sleep now and wake up after it’s over. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/25 "2019-11-27T01:45:14Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > I think that there is a possibility that we may not have a 2020 election. In some way or another, the nation may be so disorderly that we cannot hold an election. And there may be so much strife between the two parties that we cannot settle the legal questions around holding the election, and it may be suspended…I’m very impressed with the amount of disorder that is already happening, and I feel it will only intensify exponentially between now and the next election. yes, there will be a 2020 election. This shit is nothing new. The right was agitating about how Bill Clinton would suspend the 1996 election. The left panicked because they thought Bush II would cancel the 2008 election. The right frothed at the mouth because Obama would christen himself president for life. as far as I’m concerned we should get rid of old people who parrot what they read on cable “news” sites. I’m at the point where I think if you have to wait until you’re 18 to be able to vote, you should lose your right to vote at 65 or 70. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/26 "2019-11-27T02:18:17Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > There will be an election, I am certain. I am reassured, but I thought you appeared by hologram in the Time Vault _after_ the Crisis had passed, not in the lead-up to it. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/27 "2019-11-27T02:19:37Z")
Of course, there’s something else that needs to be considered. The government of the United States, of which Donald Trump is in charge of, does not run Presidential elections. There are fifty separate state elections (plus the District of Columbia.) Voters in each of those 51 elections select electors, who then meet at their state capitals and cast ballots for President and Vice President. Those ballots are counted in front of a joint session of Congress. The President has nothing to do with the process. And even if the Senate Republicans refused to show up for the counting of ballots, meaning no one was elected (and I could argue that once the electoral ballots are cast, Congress can’t simply refuse to count them,) the duty to choose a President would fall to the House of Representatives. Again, the President has no say in the process. > [@asahi](#): > > It’s true that we’ve had the War of 1812, Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the political turbulence of the 1960s, and we somehow survived as a country. Not to mention the election of 1800, where Aaron Burr accidentally tied with Thomas Jefferson. [Burr forgot he was supposed to be Vice President, got greedy and forced the House to take 34 ballots before an exhausted John Adams supporter struck a deal with Jefferson’s forces.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thomas-jefferson-aaron-burr-and-the-election-of-1800-131082359/) Or the election of 1824, where no one won until House Speaker Henry Clay [did or did not strike a “corrupt bargain” with John Quincy Adams.](https://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/campaigns-and-elections) Or 1860, 1876, 1912, 1948, 1968 (when Chicago’s Mayor Daley may have decided to not steal enough votes to elect Hubert Humphrey,) or, lest we forget, 2000 and 2016. Each one of those could have ripped the electoral process irrevocably apart. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Yet somehow the Republic survived. QFT > [@jz77817](#): > > as far as I’m concerned we should get rid of old people who parrot what they read on cable “news” sites. I’m at the point where I think if you have to wait until you’re 18 to be able to vote, you should lose your right to vote at 65 or 70. Hey, you and I are on the same side. Why do you want to put me on an ice floe and push me away from shore?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/28 "2019-11-27T02:24:00Z")
Double post. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/29 "2019-11-27T02:27:11Z")
A better question is if there will be enough interference from everybody from Albania to Zimbabwe to render the result invalid in the minds of many Americans. After all, if Russia is interfering other nations might feel compelled to follow suit. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/30 "2019-11-27T03:14:35Z")
It would be a shame if there wasn’t. The Russians have already spent so much time and money on it… ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/31 "2019-11-27T03:14:48Z")
If the Democrats don’t get their act together soon, we can expect to suffer through another four years of relative peace and low unemployment. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/32 "2019-11-27T03:22:59Z")
There will probably be an election. _But will it be a fair election?_ The 2000 election was so close that a recount was needed in Florida. Yet the party that controlled Florida successfully prevented a recount. _Independent of the recount, it is certain that the “butterfly ballots” in Palm Beach County cost Gore the election._ It is unknown whether that ballot design was deliberate Republican mischief or just “bad luck.” In the 2016 election, there were significant measures to suppress voter registration and turnout in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Certainly enough to swing the election. In some states, voters in D-leaning counties or precincts are required to drive for miles and wait for hours to vote; R’s are allowed to vote much more easily. Even when the right to vote isn’t absolutely denied, voters can be discouraged. Was it Trump himself or some R operative that encouraged R’s to stand outside precincts and intimidate non-whites trying to vote? > **[Voter Suppression Laws Cost Americans Their Voices at the Polls](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/voter-suppression-laws-cost-americans-their-voices-at-the-polls/)** > > States are making it much harder to vote. Elections have consequences, and so does voter suppression. A few years ago in Virginia(?) an R election judge, seeing the election was close, was allowed to revise her assessment of one particular ballot the next day! This is irregular to the point of criminality. Yes, there will be an election. But expect even more cheating than usual by the Republicans, and post-election litigation if the result is close. It will not be a “free and fair” election. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/33 "2019-11-27T03:48:12Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > I’m at the point where I think if you have to wait until you’re 18 to be able to vote, you should lose your right to vote at 65 or 70. That wouldn’t break my heart. It would save me the trouble of voting for the least objectionable slimeball every four years. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/34 "2019-11-27T04:02:05Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > There has never been a period in American history as crazy as this one… In the run-up to the 1860 Election, the Whig party completely collapsed, the Democratic Party completely split into the Northern Democratic Party and the Southern Democratic Party, and two groups that had almost nothing in common (abolitionists and northern industrialists) slapped themselves together to form a haphazard party (the Republican Party) with the only thing really holding the party together was the fact that both halves didn’t like the South. With no history of working together and with very little in common between the two sides, this party obviously didn’t stand a chance. With all of the major parties completely self-destructing, smaller parties like the Constitutional Union Party managed to gain a significant number of electoral votes. The party that won? That hurriedly slapped-together upstart Republican Party whose two major factions mostly didn’t give two hoots about each other’s causes. And you think today is crazy? Dude, what you’re seeing today doesn’t even crack the Top Ten for what this country has been through. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/35 "2019-11-27T04:11:36Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > A better question is if there will be enough interference from everybody from Albania to Zimbabwe to render the result invalid in the minds of many Americans. After all, if Russia is interfering other nations might feel compelled to follow suit. Don’t blame the Russians. They got the idea from the British back in '04. > [@](#): > > Imagine being an undecided voter in Clark County, Ohio, last month. You kind of think John Kerry has some good points about the war in Iraq and the economy, but you feel more comfortable with George Bush’s faith and his resolve. One day, you open your mailbox to find a letter from someone in England you’ve never met. It starts like this: > > ``` > Don’t be so ashamed of your president: the majority of you didn’t vote for him. If Bush is finally elected properly, that will be the time for Americans travelling abroad to simulate a Canadian accent. Please don’t let it come to that. Vote against Bin Laden’s dream candidate. Vote to send Bush packing. > > ``` > > It’s signed Richard Dawkins, a professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. And you’re thinking, ashamed of Bush? Canadian accent? Who is this pretentious Brit and why is he writing to me? > **[A crazy British plot to help Kerry.](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/11/a-crazy-british-plot-to-help-kerry.html)** > > Imagine being an undecided voter in Clark County, Ohio, last month. You kind of think John Kerry has some good points about the war in Iraq and the... ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/36 "2019-11-27T05:52:14Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > A better question is if there will be enough interference from everybody from Albania to Zimbabwe to render the result invalid in the minds of many Americans. After all, if Russia is interfering other nations might feel compelled to follow suit. > [@septimus](#): > > But expect even more cheating than usual by the Republicans, and post-election litigation if the result is close. It will not be a “free and fair” election. Thirded. Trump has essentially given the green light to foreign interference as well as the continuing erosion of fair elections. There may be prolonged debate and inquiries following a narrow trump win. …but a narrow trump defeat would be far worse: because trump has also played with the idea of a civil war if he loses, and at this point I have absolutely no doubt his base are crazy enough to implement it. ☹ (or rather: significant, bloody, civil unrest. You need two sides for a civil war) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/37 "2019-11-27T07:00:16Z")
The American Right has always preferred rigged elections over suspending them. If they were in a position to suspend the elections they wouldn’t; instead they’d do something like surround the polling places with thugs with orders to drive off any brown people or women who try to vote. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/38 "2019-11-27T07:39:31Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I am reassured, but I thought you appeared by hologram in the Time Vault _after_ the Crisis had passed, not in the lead-up to it. Oh, that’s good. Bravo. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/39 "2019-11-27T09:30:17Z")
Of course there will be an election, even if it’s between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027/40 "2019-11-27T10:23:19Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > A few years ago in Virginia(?) an R election judge, seeing the election was close, was allowed to revise her assessment of one particular ballot the next day! This is irregular to the point of criminality. We wuz robbed. :mad: That was the 2017 election for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 94th district. The Democratic candidate, Shelly Simonds, won the recount by \*\*one \*\*vote. That gave the House of Delegates a Democratic majority for the first time in years, by the slimmest margin: \*\*one \*\*seat. Thereupon the judges ruled **one** previously invalidated ballot was now valid and counted for the Republican, making a tie. They pulled the Republican name out of a bowl and made him the winner, giving the House of Delegates back to Republican control by that **one** seat. All they did was delay the inevitable Democratic majority by two years. Just this month \*both \*the House and Senate flipped to Democratic majorities! All’s well that ends well? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-there-even-be-a-2020-election/844027.md?page=3)