大象传媒

Here we are, after Labor Day, in the final slog of the election season, after nearly four exhausting years of the Trump administration.

Nervous yet?

There are plenty of reasons to be so. President Trump has openly mulled canceling the election, he鈥檚 threatened to send federal troops to polling stations, he鈥檚 stated he doesn鈥檛 want to fund the post office because he thinks mail-in voting favors Democrats, and most recently he鈥檚 encouraged his supporters to vote twice.

Some of our angst, however, is misplaced. The . Trump鈥檚 blatant . And , and .

Trump simply does not have the power to cancel the presidential election outright, and if there鈥檚 no election, at noon on Jan. 20, he simply stops being president. (And if he鈥檚 still in the White House, he鈥檚 trespassing).

The Electoral College is a strong and at times decisive anti-democratic feature of electing a president.

An interesting side note: If no election is held, not only does Trump cease being president at noon Jan. 20, Mike Pence also stops being vice president. According to the order of presidential succession, the next in line for president would be Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which would be particularly galling to Trump鈥攂ut if there were also no congressional elections, then no House members would have been sworn in. That takes us to No. 4 on the list, the president pro tempore of the Senate, who is defined by statute as the second-most powerful sitting senator, and canceling the November election entirely would also mean all 35 senators who were up for reelection also would not be seated. So the rump Senate would be split between 35 Democrats and 30 Republicans, with the most senior Democratic senator being Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and the new No. 2 being Dianne Feinstein of California. (Chuck Schumer of New York might be chosen again as majority leader, which would make Leahy first in line for the president pro tempore slot, and for president of the United States.) This is an extreme scenario, but it shows that canceling the election will not benefit Trump in any reasonable manner, even if he were able to pull it off.

But there are vulnerabilities within our system of electing a president, and you can put money that Trump is going to try to exploit them.

To date, Trump鈥檚 most blatant attempt has been trying to undercut the post office鈥攕ome have estimated that up to in November. And one should never discount other tried-and-true methods of vote suppression鈥� in late 2019, for example, , or an error rate of 63.3%, according to the ACLU of Georgia. Or the decision on Sept. 11 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that effectively , disenfranchising them again after the public had previously voted to restore their voting rights.

But Trump and his minions can game the system in other, less obvious ways.

We already know that the Electoral College is a strong and at times decisive anti-democratic feature of electing a president. Twice in the past two decades, a candidate won the presidency while losing the popular vote. What matters is getting 270 electoral votes.

And yet our 18th century electoral system isn鈥檛 as straightforward as all that. Electing a U.S. president is an arcane art practiced only by the acolytes working within the political parties and conventions, little understood by, and鈥攗ntil now鈥攏ot affecting the average voter. It鈥檚 not a system whereby the electoral votes are tallied on election night and a state goes blue or red, and we鈥檙e done, even though that鈥檚 what we鈥檝e come to expect.

Request a ballot as early as possible and vote as early as possible.

Consider the electoral calendar, which spells out the dates by which states must resolve controversies in the apportionment of electors, the governors send certificates to the , and so on. (.) Each date is a deadline, and also an opening into which a campaign lawyer can insert a monkey wrench to cause havoc.

The key date is Dec. 14, when the electors (appointed by their parties) meet in their respective states to vote for president and vice president on separate ballots. This also was the deadline the Supreme Court enforced in the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision that shut down the Florida recount and gave the election to President George W. Bush, a legal recognition that Dec. 14 (specifically, the 鈥淢onday after the second Wednesday in December鈥�) is the real election day.

But which slate of electoral votes is sent off to the National Archivist is left to the states. Congress鈥� role is to certify them, and the assumption is that the states鈥� votes are accurate. The Guardian in July outlined the : Trump loses the popular vote but is within one state of an Electoral College victory, and puts political pressure on Republican-led state legislatures in key swing states to claim fraud and 鈥渋rregularities鈥� and award Republican electors, even as the states鈥� popular votes go to former Vice President Joe Biden.

The very foundations of our democracy are on the ballot.

Those electoral votes are transmitted to the newly sworn-in Congress on Jan. 3, and they must be counted by Jan. 6, giving Congress three days to resolve any discrepancies. Given the extreme partisanship we鈥檝e seen recently, a likely outcome is the disputed electoral votes simply would not be counted.

And if the total electoral count minus the disputed states doesn鈥檛 give either candidate the required 270-vote majority, it鈥檚 up to the U.S. House of Representatives to vote鈥攊n which each state receives one vote. The winning threshold is 26 votes, and as of September 2020, (although some by a single vote), and Michigan is tied 7-7. If the House deadlocks, then it goes to the Senate, with each senator receiving one vote.

If you think that scenario is too extreme to occur, consider that it already has, in the 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes and the Republican Party essentially flipped three Southern states through outright fraud at the polls and getting their allies in those states to submit rival slates of electors. The compromise Congress worked out gave Hayes the presidency, but in exchange for an end to Reconstruction, ushering in a new era of racial discrimination and terror in the South.

And for anyone who says, 鈥淥h, they鈥檇 never do that鈥�,鈥� consider we鈥檙e in an era when the incumbent, with all of the built-in advantages that comes with it, has shown himself to be utterly unconstrained by ethics, past norms, or鈥攚ith the aid of an enabling attorney general鈥攅ven federal laws that prohibit using the apparatus of government for political purposes鈥攕uch as . There literally is nothing Trump won鈥檛 do to stay in power, even if it means cheating in the most blatant and illegal manner possible.

So What Can We Do?

The short answer is 鈥渧ote,鈥� but the question then becomes 鈥渉ow?鈥� And the answer is 鈥渁s soon as it鈥檚 humanly possible.鈥�

The best hedge against all the problems we can anticipate is to request a ballot as early as possible and vote as early as possible. Whether it鈥檚 an absentee ballot that can be dropped off at a local elections office, or an in-person request made at an elections office for a ballot that can be filled out on the spot, the idea is to get the ballots in quickly, and to ensure the number of steps in which it can be delayed or mishandled is minimized.

Plan ahead, confirm your registration, and look up your state鈥檚 elections rules. Many Republican-led states have passed laws since the last presidential election that purge voters from the rolls or otherwise make it harder to cast a vote. Election laws vary considerably by state (and even by county). For example, can be returned at any time between now and 8 p.m. on Election Day, while in lasts from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Oct. 29-30 and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Oct. 31, or 25 hours total.

Early in-person voting starts the week of Sept. 14 in Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Meanwhile, Trump鈥檚 attacks on mail-in voting have raised legitimate questions as to whether or not the post office will be able to both send out the expected deluge of requested absentee ballots and deliver completed ballots back to state elections offices. (Many states require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Day, not be just postmarked by then.)

Five states conduct all their elections entirely by mail: Colorado, Hawai鈥檌, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. (And we also know we don鈥檛 have one single Election Day, but an 鈥渆lection window鈥� that sometimes extends weeks past Election Day as the mail-in ballots are tallied.) Contrary to the Trump administration鈥檚 messaging, mail-in voting fraud has been practically nonexistent, mailed ballots can鈥檛 be hacked by scary foreigners, and (although ,鈥� which may lead Trump to try to prevent full counts of absentee ballots). But combined with the expected increase in mail during the election, plus the administration鈥檚 attempts to hamstring the post office (and the administration鈥檚 stated intention to find other ways to gum up the system), your ballot may not be the thing to trust to the postal carriers this year. (.) Some all-mail-election states, such as Washington, do have drop boxes and should be considered.

It鈥檚 a hard judgment call to make when the safest procedure for ensuring your vote will count鈥攁s close to in-person as possible鈥攊s at odds with the safest way to vote during a deadly pandemic鈥攙ia mail鈥攚hose .

In the meantime, perhaps go easy on unnecessary deliveries during election season? Comedian Bill Maher used his Aug. 28 show to promote a to cut down on all the ordering and shipping during the election season, to give ballots a greater chance of being received in time, especially for those voters who have no choice but to vote by mail.

It鈥檚 never been a good idea to take voting for granted. That鈥檚 especially true this year, when the very foundations of our democracy are on the ballot.

And while the post office is in financial straits, a few months of less intense usage isn鈥檛 going to be the death knell. But many Republicans have long advocated shutting down the post office and privatizing mail delivery, and their reelection just might be that final straw.