Yesterday I gave you a number of reasons why the election in 2020 is not a repeat of 2016 with plenty of nuggets to raise your spirits and cool your fears. Today we are going in the other direction and I’m going to go over a few possibilities how this election could go wrong. And by go wrong I mean yield an illegitimate result. Trump is very unpopular and has a practically non-existent chance to win the popular vote and very slim chance, 13% as of today at 538, but we have more to fear this go around than another electoral misfire.

1) Who decides on the electors?

In our system we do not actually vote for president we vote for a slate of elector to represent our state at the electoral college who had promised to vote for our choice in the presidential contest. In some states it is not force of law that selects the electors and there is nothing legally from preventing a legislature from voting to send a slate of electors of their choosing. So, if Florida goes by a bare margin to trump thee governor and thee state legislature could simply choose to ignore the results and send a GOP slate delivering the state’s electoral college votes to Trump. If Trump is defeated soundly in a number of states this avenue of election rigging is closed off but if it comes down to a single state and the GOP control the state it is a possibility.

2) A Delay in Certifying the Electors.

If the election and the electors are not certified in time, then a state may not send their electors to the college to vote on the president. Such an outcome could make it impossible for any candidate to cross the 270 line in which case the selection of president would be made by the House of Representatives with each state having one vote. There has been reporting that the Trump campaign have been readying a large number of lawyers to contest elections and slate of electors in a number of states with the intention of not winning these legal challenges but consuming so much time that the electors cannot be certified and throwing the election to the house.

The Congress that would vote in the new president is the incoming class and there have also been reports that the Democrats under the leadership of their Speaker have been targeting particular House Seats with an eye focused on gaining control of a majority of state delegation in addition to their current majority in total members.