United States / Presidential: Can flaws in the electoral system lead to fiasco?

A polling station in Bloomington, Indiana on June 2, 2020, primary election day.

Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Text by: Christophe Paget Follow

13 min

On November 3, the United States will experience a new “Election Day”, during which they will have to choose a new president.

This election will be "the most important in the history of the country", affirm the two candidates, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

What is certain is that this election is unique: between the pandemic which exploded the postal and early voting, the president's attempts to delegitimize it, the States which are still to decide in court the methods of counting ... But the country already has examples of elections where the outcome has been slow to determine.

Could certain weaknesses in the American electoral system lead to a big fiasco this year?

Elements of answers. 

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• Being elected without winning the "popular vote"

Let us first talk about the system of “large voters”, which may seem unequal since it allows to be elected without having obtained a majority of the votes.

In 2016, during the last presidential election, Donald Trump was elected president with fewer votes than his opponent Hillary Clinton:

- Donald Trump: 46.1% of the vote, 304 voters

- Hillary Clinton: 48.2% of the vote , 227 voters

The same thing happened in the 2000 election, exactly 20 years ago, when Democrat Al Gore lost to Republican George Bush, when he had more votes than him :

- George W. Bush: 47.9% of the votes, 271 voters

- Al Gore: 48.4% of the votes, 266 voters

In all, four presidents were elected after losing the “popular vote”.

Why ?

Because of the so-called “grand voters” system.

Americans don't vote directly to elect their president, but choose their representatives, their “grand voters” - 538 in all - in each of the 50 states.

They will then elect the president.

In 48 of the 50 American states, the “winner takes all” rule prevails: the winning party wins ALL of the major voters.

Why was this system of indirect democracy, considered by many to be archaic and inegalitarian, set up in a country that prides itself on being "the greatest democracy in the world"?

First, let us recall that before 1830, when the popular vote was implemented, the grand voters were not even elected but appointed by the States.

It then evolved into more democracy.

Originally, behind this system of large voters, there was the idea of ​​favoring the less populous and less powerful states.

The system therefore favors small rural states, which have at least three large voters.

►

In 2016, a voter in Wyoming thus had, as

recalls

, an electoral weight 3.5 times greater than a voter in Texas.

This system therefore favors small rural states, mainly composed of whites - who vote Republican.

The four presidents elected without winning the popular vote were also Republicans.

Changing the system, as some had called for after the 2016 election, would require reforming the constitution, and thus securing the consent of two-thirds of Congress, and 38 out of 50 states - including many small states that take advantage of the current voting system ...

• The crucial role of the Supreme Court

In 2000, the vote difference was so small in one of the key states, Florida, that Democrats demanded a recount.

But the Supreme Court of the United States finally annulled this count which it judged "unconstitutional", because according to it impossible to make within the time limit set by the constitution.

This year, too, the Supreme Court may well be called upon to rule: Donald Trump has continued for months to question the validity of the November 3 ballot, accusing among other things the postal vote, which this year is more important than ever for cause of Covid-19.

It is for this reason that, providing for legal remedies (from one side or the other), the US president has expedited the appointment of a new conservative judge, Amy Coney Barrett - which on paper would give him six votes out of nine in the Supreme Court.

►

The Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, immediately denounced "

" - especially in 2016, we remember, the Republicans had refused the appointment of a new judge to the Supreme Court, rightly arguing the fact that it was an election year ...

• A weakened advance poll

This year, advance polls are stronger than ever, as a good part of Americans fear they will be contaminated with Covid-19 if they move on November 3 in crowded polling stations.

43 states as well as the federal capital, Washington, have therefore put in place advance polling systems, with nearly 75 million postal ballots ordered or sent, more than double the number of 2016. On October 23, 2020, more than fifty million people had already voted, by mail or in person, against nearly 6 million four years ago at the same time.

A record.

But since President Trump has played down the virus since the start of the pandemic, Americans who vote by mail for fear of Covid would be significantly more Democrats than Republicans ... And, coincidentally, for months the president has continued to denigrate this vote by correspondence, affirming (without proof) that it allows all frauds and that it will therefore benefit its competitor Joe Biden.

Louis DeJoy, a supporter of the president who runs the USPS, has even been accused by Democrats of making budget cuts to deliberately slow mail delivery, resulting in the cancellation of votes that would not arrive. not on time.

In any case, by treating the postal vote as " 

 ", it is on all the results of the presidential election that Donald Trump casts doubt, paving the way for possible recourse to justice or , worse, a refusal to accept the result if he is declared a loser.

• Evolving rules

The rules for how those votes are counted are already the subject of political and legal disputes - more than 300 lawsuits are pending in 44 states, with Republicans trying for months

to restrict postal voting: “

 , ”explained at the end of September in a column published in the newspaper Le Monde Rick Hasen, Professor of law and political science at the University of California Irvine.

►

These rules already varied by state before the pandemic.

Already, the dates on which early voting begins

vary, and not all states allow it.

In some cases, voters receive their ballot directly, in others they must request it.

Sometimes you have to have your ballot signed by a notary or a third party (a rule abandoned in many states in these times of Covid, but not in all).

Some states still count the ballots that arrive after the election date if they have been mailed on the day of the vote, the postmark being taken as proof - knowing that the said stamp is sometimes illegible ...

• The right to vote hampered: "

  Voters suppression

  "

Beyond “early voting”, early voting, the voting rules vary from state to state anyway, which leads to all kinds of complaints from voters and organizations representing them.

35 States out of 50 thus require an identity document (or at least a certificate) to avoid any fraud.

A decision criticized by some, who stress that the poor, the homeless, people who do not have a permanent address, are deprived of the right to vote.

Young people and / or people from minorities mostly fall into these categories, and tend to vote Democrats.

This tendency to force the presentation of an identity document, which has developed over the past ten years, comes from the Republican States.

Criminals' right to vote is also restricted in most states.

In some, they get it back automatically after serving their prison sentence.

But in others,

, they must also have paid all their court costs and other fines.

Again, an attitude that disproportionately affects Hispanics and African Americans, and for some human rights activists is a blatant example of restricting the right to vote for minorities.

What activists call " 

 ", the obstruction of the right to vote, is not new in the country.

After the Civil War, when African Americans were given the right to vote, special taxes and language proficiency tests were put in place to hinder it.

The

passed in 1965, banned many of these practices, but was weakened in 2013 when it gave states more leeway.

• Several ballots for a single ballot

In the United States, the ballot can be complicated to complete… In 2016, the authorities of the county of San Francisco (California) offered voters a reminder before going to vote, so as not to forget anything.

It must be said that the ballot is nine pages long ...

This year again, Americans are not just choosing a new president: the 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be renewed, as will 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and 11 of the 50 American states are choosing a new governor.

Thousands of positions will also be renewed at the local level: state legislatures, judges, mayors and municipal councils, counties, sheriffs ...

And many Americans will also have to vote on local initiatives, through a referendum: reintroduction of wolves in Colorado, decriminalization of the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Washington ... And five months after the death of George Floyd, a Afro-American killed by police during his arrest, voters in several cities and counties will vote on measures to reform their police.

• A result, but when?

The winner is usually known the night following the vote.

This year, given the importance of the postal vote, the count should take longer.

Already, the counting of this specific vote differs from state to state: while some like Florida start it before November 3, states generally do not do it until the same day, when face-to-face voting is over and the offices are closed.

And it takes more time to process these ballots: the voter's signature must be compared with that of his registration card ... Such a level of postal voting being unprecedented, no one knows how many people will have voted before November 3 and how long it will take to count those votes, especially if one of the two candidates does not clearly take the lead.

• A refusal of defeat?

The big question is obviously whether Joe Biden and especially Donald Trump will accept the result.

In 2000,

until 36 days after the vote, and after calling on the Supreme Court of Florida and then the United States.

This year, in view of the hundreds of trials already underway on the validity of such and such ballots, we feel that resorting to the Supreme Court would not pose a problem for the Democrats or the Republicans, for this election described as "the most important of the history of the country ”by the two candidates…

Donald Trump has obviously already planned to contest a possible defeat by casting doubt on a postal vote that he considers " 

 ".

And he refused to say whether he would quit power peacefully in the event of a defeat: " 

 ".

To reassure Americans (and beyond), Mitch McConnell, the Republican Majority Leader in the Senate, intervened, tweeting: " 

 ".

But in the absence of a clear position taken by the president, the doubt remains.

Earlier this month, the Washington correspondent for

was optimistic: " 

 ."

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