ANANTA INSIGHTS
Washington Matters – Election Edition
Welcome to a special election edition of Ananta’s insights on the United States of America.
The world has had over a year to reckon with the potential return of Trump. Over a year of modelling and analyses to assess the impact of either Trump 2.0 or Biden 2.0 on various countries, markets, geostrategic and geoeconomic architectures. Models that scrambled to generate a second iteration roughly 100 days ago when Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. 100 days of a roller coaster campaign that no one had anticipated.
The campaign is finally over and Election Day has dawned on America. Both candidates have presented their closing arguments. Now, the decision is up to the American electorate.
Only one pressing question remains: Will there be a clear winner on November 6th?
To answer this question, this edition will look at the aftermath of the 2020 election, voter confidence in election integrity, expected legal challenges across states and the timeline within which all litigation must conclude. Since the election is not just to elect the President, it is also for the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, this edition will look at the seats in play and what to watch out for.
Image Source: https://www.newyorker.com/live/2024-presidential-debate-analysis-donald-trump-kamala-harris
Quick recap: Americans do not vote directly for a Presidential candidate, they vote to elect a group of representatives called electors. Each state is allocated electors equal to its total number of Senators and Representatives in Congress with a total of 538 electoral votes up for grab nationally. The candidate who secures a majority i.e. 270 electoral votes wins the election. While rare, it is possible that the candidate who wins the popular vote loses the electoral college and thus the election (See Clinton vs Trump 2016). To understand the US electoral college and the Presidential election system please read the previous issue of this newsletter here.
1. Aftermath of the 2020 election: Biden vs Trump; Expectation of Violence.
In 2020, Biden flipped Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Nebraska’s 1st Congressional District winning the election with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
While the electoral numbers point to a clear victory, the margin of votes was close in all of these states but Michigan. Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes, Georgia by 11,779 votes and so on. The narrow margins triggered a litany of recounts and legal challenges.
Over 60 lawsuits were filed across these states claiming voter fraud, challenging mail-in voting procedures, disputing ballot access and counting methods. Most of these cases were dismissed or ruled against due to lack of evidence or legal standing.
The litigation, despite blanket dismissal, fuelled the refusal of a significant portion of voters to accept the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory. This refusal sowed a deep distrust in some voters over the accuracy of casting and counting of votes. A distrust fanned by Donald Trump and senior media/political personalities. It played a central role in the events of January 6 2021 when a mob stormed the US Capitol to disrupt Congress from certifying the election result in a movement called “stop the steal.”
Experts believe that the ongoing claims of election fraud could spur instances of violence across the country.
In a Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis memo, analysts tracked online discussions “preparing for future violence against public officials and federal agents.” These warnings have spurred local officials to secure polling booths and deploy snipers at counting centres.
Bottom line is that America is prepared for a violent election day.
2. Voter belief in Election Integrity
The narrative from 2020-21 has simmered over the last four years and many expect it to boil over on and after election day 2024. American voters’ confidence in the accuracy of casting and counting votes has a deep partisan divide.
A Gallup poll from September 2024 found that the percentage of Americans saying they are “not at all confident” in the vote has steadily climbed from 6% in 2004 to 19% today.
Republicans’ faith in the accuracy of the election results nationwide has sunk 16 points since the 2020 election, now registering 28%. This follows an 11-point decline to 44% in 2020 from 55% in 2016, the last time a majority of Republicans were confident.
Democrats’ confidence in the reliability of the presidential vote increased sharply between 2008 and 2016, from 57% to 85%, and has since remained high. More than half of independents have also consistently seen it as accurate.
A Pew poll from October 2024 went a step further and found that 90% of Harris supporters think elections across the U.S. will be run and administered well, including more than a third (37%) who say they will be administered very well. While only 57% of Trump supporters say U.S. elections will be administered well, with just 9% saying they will be administered very well.
3. What to Expect after Election Day: Recounts, Litigation, Certification and Transition
The US Presidential election is not executed by a national authority like the Election Commission in India. The states are responsible for voter registration, polling and counting in their districts. It goes from there that each state has their own rules for voter eligibility, registration, ballot casting, and counting.
Over the last few months, the Republican National Committee and other GOP-aligned groups have filed a number of lawsuits in swing states claiming that states have more registered voters than eligible citizens and that non-citizens are on the rolls. Most of these have been dismissed but seeds of a narrative for election denial have been sowed.
These lawsuits include over 70 cases on voting rights and voter registration laws which have overwhelmingly resulted in limiting barriers to voting but the wave of litigation highlights the efforts to impact the voter rolls to impact the results.
Types of expected challenges
Mail-In Voting Challenges: Various states faced lawsuits regarding their mail-in voting procedures. Some argued that rules for processing mail-in ballots, such as signature matching requirements, were too strict and could disenfranchise voters.
Ballot Access: In several states, there were disputes over the ability of third-party candidates to appear on the ballot. Lawsuits were filed over the signature requirements and deadlines for candidates
Recounts and Audits: Following the election, several states, including Georgia and Wisconsin, conducted recounts due to the narrow margins. Legal challenges were mounted over the procedures used for these recounts.
Election Security Allegations: Claims of widespread voter fraud led to numerous lawsuits, although courts consistently dismissed these cases due to a lack of evidence.
Gerrymandering and Redistricting: Legal challenges regarding district maps were present, with accusations of partisan gerrymandering affecting representation.
State Certifications: After the election, some states faced challenges regarding their certification of results, with claims that the process was flawed or not transparent.
Recount Rules Across Swing States
Before litigation is necessary, the first option available to challenge a result is to request a recount. The rules of recounts vary state by state. In 2024, the rules of swing states will dictate how long the world has to wait before a winner is confirmed.
Georgia: A candidate can request a recount if the margin of a race is within 0.5 percentage points, as long as the request is made within two business days of certification. Georgia’s 2020 presidential vote got significant scrutiny in the days after Election Day. Election officials hand-counted nearly 5 million ballots again after the election, as part of a statewide risk-limiting audit authorized by a new state law. Then, after the state certified Biden’s victory, the Trump campaign requested a machine recount, as was its right under state law. (That recount also didn’t change the outcome.)
Michigan: Michigan law provides for an automatic recount if the margin of victory in a race is 2,000 votes or fewer. A candidate is also allowed to request a recount if they have a “good-faith belief that but for fraud or mistake, the candidate would have had a reasonable chance of winning,” according to state law. The state recently enacted changes to Michigan’s recount law, but none will go into effect before Election Day.
Nevada: There’s no provision for automatic recounts but a candidate can request one, as long as they cover the cost of the recount and make the request within three days of the certification.
North Carolina: A candidate can request a recount in a race if the margin of victory is within 0.5% of votes cast, or 10,000 votes, whichever is less.
Pennsylvania: The state automatically triggers a recount if the margin between two candidates is within 0.5%. But three voters can also request a recount in a specific precinct if they allege there was fraud or an error in that precinct.
Wisconsin: The state allows candidates to request a recount, as Trump did in 2020. But the candidate who requests the recount has to cover the expenses if the margin of victory is larger than 0.25 percentage points, as Trump did when he paid $3 million for a partial recount that resulted in no substantive change to the 2020 vote count
Certification and Post Election Day Timeline
The 20th Amendment to the US Constitution says “The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January… and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”
A new President must be sworn in by 20th January and a timeline is worked backwards from the deadline for the election to be certified first in all states and then by Congress.
Once votes are counted, it’s up to the state election officials to certify that the results are accurate. The deadlines for states to certify the official vote tallies are staggered.
Dec. 11 — The appointing of electors. A state “executive” has to certify the state’s presidential electors. (The governor is a state’s default executive, unless state law ahead of time designates another official.) According to the Electoral Count Reform Act, which was passed on a bipartisan vote in 2022, this deadline is six days before the electors meet, which this year is…
Dec. 17 — The meeting of electors. The appointed presidential electors from each state will meet in their state capitals to cast their official votes for the candidate who won their state’s votes. Together, these gatherings are referred to as the meeting of the Electoral College.
Dec. 25 — The arrival of the electoral votes. The president of the Senate and the national archivist must receive the electoral certificates of each state by the fourth Wednesday in December.
Jan. 3, 2025 — The swearing-in of the new Congress. The new Congress is sworn in before its members count the presidential electoral votes.
Jan. 6 — The counting of electoral votes in Congress. In the election’s final step, members of Congress convene to count the electoral votes.
Jan. 20 — Inauguration Day. The 47th president takes the oath of office outside the Capitol.
Certification has long been considered a mandatory, non-discretionary responsibility. But in 2020, the Trump campaign and allies targeted Republicans at the local and state level and pressured them not to certify the results. None of those efforts worked in 2020, but Republicans have spent the last four years targeting positions that hold power over certification. At least 35 officials who have refused to certify elections since 2020 will have a role over certifying the vote this fall, according to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew).
Presidential Transition
If there is no clear winner projected by Nov. 11, federal agencies are required to begin briefing both the Harris and Trump campaign teams separately on each agency’s most pressing work and the key roles that need to be filled.
When then-President Trump refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win, he obstructed the typical process of an orderly transition between presidencies. Biden’s team was locked out of briefings from critical federal agencies like the Pentagon, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.
To better prepare an incoming President replacing a recalcitrant one, Republicans and Democrats in Congress in 2022 passed the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act. Previously the General Services Administration would ascertain which candidate had likely won before transition briefings began. But now both campaigns will start separate transition planning if neither candidate has conceded within five days from Election Day.
4. The House and Senate
On November 5th, Americans will be voting for a President, Vice President, 33 Senators, and 435 House Representatives. The election, thus, is for overall control in Washington not just the White House. Single-party control in Washington is common at the beginning of a presidency but tends not to last long.
In the House, Republicans currently hold a thin majority and the Senate tilts Democratic by 51-49. A small number of seats in both chambers could tip the balance.
Control of the 435-member House is more uncertain than the Senate, with 22 races rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report. Neither political party is expected to gain a large House majority during the next Congress. There’s even a possibility the majority party has less wiggle room than the 220-212 split that currently exists, along with three vacancies.
This report’s final projections range from Republicans adding five seats to their majority to Democrats picking up 10 seats and taking over the majority again. “The race for control of the U.S. House remains as close as it’s ever been.”
The Cook Political Report shows the GOP picking up two to five seats, giving the party a majority between 51 and 54 members. A narrower majority would allow “moderates like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins to wield outsized influence in the next Congress.”
Senate leaders have been equally focused on hard-fought and close campaigns in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Any one of them could deliver control of the upper chamber. Republicans are favoured to turn over the West Virginia seat occupied by erstwhile democrat and now independent Joe Manchin III, potentially pushing them past the 50-member benchmark if they hold onto seats occupied by incumbents Ted Cruz in Texas, Deb Fischer in Nebraska and Rick Scott in Florida.
A divided government, i.e. with control of the House, Senate and White House not belonging to a single party, is unlikely to produce the sweeping changes promised by either candidate.
