Trump falsely declaring a win within the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the US election, as poll counting continued in Pennsylvania and different battleground states.

Mandel Ngan/AFP through Getty Pictures

With the result of the 2020 presidential election nonetheless hanging on the uncounted votes in a handful of battleground states, President Donald Trump has already prematurely declared victory and stated he’ll take the election combat to the Supreme Court docket.

Joe Biden stated that “It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who has received this election,” Mr. Biden stated. “That’s the choice of the American individuals.”

This example compounded the fear felt by some even earlier than the election {that a} contested election would severely undermine religion in American democracy.

But the US has a protracted historical past of such contested elections. With one exception, they haven’t badly broken the American political system.

That contested 1860 election – which sparked the Civil Warfare – occurred in a novel context. As a political scientist who research elections, I imagine that, ought to President Trump – or much less possible, Joe Biden – contest the outcomes of the November election, American democracy will survive.

Biden projected confidence however urged endurance in a speech late on election evening, Wilmington, Delaware, Nov. 4, 2020.

Win McNamee/Getty Pictures

Legitimacy and peaceable transitions

Most contested presidential elections haven’t posed threats to the legitimacy of presidency.

Legitimacy, or the collective acknowledgment that authorities has a proper to rule, is crucial to a democracy. In a professional system, unpopular insurance policies are largely accepted as a result of residents imagine that authorities has the precise to make them. For instance, a citizen could despise taxes however nonetheless admit that they’re lawful. Illegitimate methods, which aren’t supported by residents, can collapse or descend into revolution.

In democracies, elections generate legitimacy as a result of residents contribute to the number of management.

Up to now, contested elections haven’t badly broken the material of democracy as a result of the foundations for dealing with such disputes exist and have been adopted. Whereas politicians and residents alike have howled concerning the unfairness of loss, they accepted these losses.

Contested elections and continuity

In 1800, each Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr acquired the identical variety of votes within the Electoral School. As a result of no candidate received a transparent majority of Electoral votes, the Home of Representatives adopted the Structure and convened a particular session to resolve the deadlock by a vote. It took 36 ballots to provide Jefferson the victory, which was broadly accepted.

In 1824, Andrew Jackson received a plurality of the favored and electoral vote in opposition to John Quincy Adams and two different candidates, however did not win the required majority within the Electoral School. The Home, once more following the process set within the Structure, chosen Adams because the winner over Jackson.

The 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden was contested as a result of a number of Southern states failed to obviously certify a winner. This was resolved by way of inter-party negotiation performed by an Electoral Fee established by Congress. Whereas Hayes would develop into president, concessions got to the South that successfully ended Reconstruction.

The competition between Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon in 1960 was rife with allegations of voter fraud, and Nixon supporters pressed for aggressive recounts in lots of states. Ultimately, Nixon begrudgingly accepted the choice fairly than drag the nation by way of civil discord through the intense U.S.-Soviet tensions of the Chilly Warfare.

Lastly, in 2000, GOP candidate George W. Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore tangled over disputed ballots in Florida. The Supreme Court docket terminated a recount effort and Gore publicly conceded, recognizing the legitimacy of Bush’s victory by saying, “Whereas I strongly disagree with the Court docket’s determination, I settle for it.”

In every case, the shedding aspect was sad with the results of the election. However in every case, the loser accepted the legally derived consequence, and the American democratic political system persevered.

The system collapses

The election of 1860 was a unique story.

After Abraham Lincoln defeated three different candidates, Southern states merely refused to simply accept the outcomes. They considered the number of a president who wouldn’t defend slavery as illegitimate and ignored the election’s outcomes.

It was solely by way of the profoundly bloody Civil Warfare that the US remained intact. The dispute over the legitimacy of this election, based mostly in elementary variations between the North and South, value 600,000 American lives.

The contested 1860 presidential election led to the Civil Warfare, the place 600,000 died, together with these Accomplice troopers at in Gettysburg’s ‘the satan’s den,’ June or July 1863.

Alexander Gardner, photographer/Library of Congress Prints and Images Division

What’s the distinction between the political collapse of 1860 and the continuity of different contested elections? In all circumstances, residents have been politically divided and elections have been hotly contested.

What makes 1860 stand out so clearly is that the nation was divided over the ethical query of slavery, and this division adopted geographic traces that enabled a revolution to kind. Additional, the Confederacy was moderately unified throughout class traces.

Whereas the America of immediately is actually divided, the distribution of political views is way extra dispersed and complicated than the ideological cohesion of the Confederacy.

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Rule of regulation

Historical past suggests, then, that even when Trump or Biden contest the election, the outcomes wouldn’t be catastrophic.

The Structure is obvious on what would occur: First, the president can’t merely declare an election invalid. Second, voting irregularities could possibly be investigated by the states, who’re accountable for managing the integrity of their electoral processes. This appears unlikely to alter any reported outcomes, as voter fraud is awfully uncommon.

The subsequent step could possibly be an attraction to the Supreme Court docket or fits in opposition to the states. To overturn any state’s preliminary choice, proof of a miscount or voter fraud must be strongly established.

If these makes an attempt to contest the election fail, on Inauguration Day, the elected president would lawfully assume the workplace. Any remaining ongoing contestation could be moot after this level, because the president would have full authorized authority to train the powers of his workplace, and couldn’t be eliminated in need of impeachment.

Whereas the results of the 2020 election is certain to make many voters sad, I imagine rule of regulation will endure. The highly effective historic, social and geographic forces that produced the overall failure of 1860 merely will not be current.

That is an up to date model of a narrative initially revealed on September 1, 2020.

Alexander Cohen doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that will profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their educational appointment.