“Fear is not to be trusted.” — Nobusuke Tagomi
in The Man in the High Castle
Bunker or Bust
There are 100 days from Oct. 13 to Inauguration Day, January 20. While many people are counting down the days to the election, November 3, it is unlikely we will have closure then. Yes, by the end of that day a majority of U.S. voters will have voted for Joe Biden to be the 46th President, and the likelihood is high (87% according to 538 on October 13) that Biden will also have earned 270 or more electoral votes, which is what is required for election, despite ongoing efforts by the Republicans and the Russians to prevent this through voter suppression, election discrediting, and outright fraud. But this doesn’t end the matter. It is clear that Donald Trump is trying to delegitimize the election results to stay in power. It is quite possible that the future of American democracy will be decided in the next 100 days. (Timeline near the end of this article.)
Even before he won in 2016 (and only because of the Electoral College system, voter suppression and perhaps outright fraud) Trump was disparaging the election process. Early in his administration it made sense to ask, as I did, “Is a Trump Coup Possible?” and realize that the answer was yes. But his chances of a successful extra-legal seizing of power before the election have declined since I put together a “Coup Scorecard”. There are a number of reasons for this, but basically he has pissed off the military, the FBI, and most independent voters who all might have given him a way to keep power much more easily than his options now. His trial balloon to delay the elections (something he doesn’t have the power to do) was even shot down by Republicans.
Three weeks before the election, Biden’s support is twice what Clinton’s was, the undecided vote is much smaller, Trump is more disliked than ever and Biden’s positive ratings are very high. So, with Trump’s support declining and the chances of a close election disappearing, should we relax and assume all will be well?
“Snatch and grab, man. Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude - it’s over.” — Adam Fox, an organizer of the militia plot to kidnap and kill Michigan’s Governor. (Quoted in Gabbatt 2020)
Sadly, not. As Adam Fox makes clear in his delusional claims quoted above, many of Trump’s most dangerous supporters are irrational optimists, as is their leader. What did Mr. Fox think would be “over” once they grabbed the Governor to execute right away, or perhaps after a trial for treason (they hadn’t decided yet how they would kill her, just that they would). Would the people of Michigan rise up in support of them and sweep away the elected government? Would Trump send in the troops to support them? Would they get to be on Fox News?Certainly they did not think that they would be killed or arrested, the actual outcome if their plot hadn’t been infiltrated early on by the FBI. Life in prison awaits; they didn’t see that coming.
This wide, and wild, disconnect from reality by Trump and his supporters promises to make election day, and the vote counting period after it, violent and chaotic. Trump’s only chance now may be enough disruption to throw the election into a legal black hole so that through various complicated routes (some leading through “his” Supreme Court) so he can steal the presidency. The Michigan plot is certainly not the only one, and less organized but more widespread will be gangs of mainly white men showing up at polling and vote counting sites in swing states (and others) to disrupt democracy. A list of The Key States, with a short analysis of the Republican support in each states’ government and when election results will be known, is at the end of this article.
A number of analysts have crafted optimistic arguments about this election based on the failure of earlier attempts by Republicans to steal elections, two candidates for governor in 2018, for example. But Republicans did successfully steal the 2000 presidential election, and since the Democratic architects of Jim Crow voting joined them in the “Dixiecrat” defections, they have been the party of voter suppression and voter fraud. In any event, the Kentucky and North Carolina 2018 elections were challenged on claims of voting fraud, which could not be proved (as they were just made up). Voting disruption, or Federal authorities intervening in the process and claiming fraud (or sedition), is a different matter.
Michael Waldman and Wendy Weiser put forward “6 Reasons Not to Panic About the Election” but they are far from convincing. Depending on state officials and the U.S. Supreme Court, because of what they have done in the past, is naive. It ignores the new abnormal we inhabit. Of course, panic is not useful, and they do end with a promise to work on protecting the vote and the vote count and even to go to the barricades if there is a coup. But until one gets to the last paragraph, it almost seems like they are saying here are 6 reasons not to act.
For his part, Trump seems to be doing all he can to stay in power even if defeated. This includes his whiney warnings of election fraud, his sabotaging of the U.S. Post Office, and the mobilization of right wing militia, reactionary Sheriffs (161 belong to the “Constitutional” Sheriff’s network), the Department of Justice under William Barr, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) paramilitary police to create social unrest and prepare for actually disrupting voting and vote counting in key states.
The chances of Trump backing down and accepting defeat are small, since jail seems almost inevitable once he is out of office. And despite everything, the Republican Party has stood by him, as has his base. Many police, thousands of right wing militiamen and tens of thousands of MAGA believers have clearly demonstrated by hate speech and greater violence, including murder, that they support him in the streets. This support is impervious to reality and protects him from a landslide defeat so great he can’t deny it. Some people think Trump might quit, but I think he is in the Bunker, and he won’t go easily.
Trump’s Attempted Coup
Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take.—John Lewis
It is not hard to imagine: Trump in his Bunker (not just the actual Bunker he ran to in June, but also the newly fortified White House itself, and Mar-a-Lago golf club, of course), the country in partial pandemic lockdown, thousands of daily deaths from COVID-19 and influenza, frequent killings by police and militia, buildings burning in cities across the land, anti-science protesters storming health offices, government meetings and defying safety rules in neighborhood stores to the point of fatal confrontations, all the while the streets roil with BLM and Save the Vote demonstrators, hit with draconian federal charges on the slightest pretext and often confronting MAGA loyalists dominated by well armed white supremacists and QAnon fanatics (often the same heavily armed middle-aged white man). More and more progressives are in their own militias. There are mass fights between leftist and rightist demonstrators (already a regular occurrence in Portland) and even gun battles. Trump’s actions in Washington, D.C. in early June, called by some a practice or failed coup, reveal that Trump and Barr and more than ready to provoke direct confrontations. Between May 27 and August 28 there were at least 497 confrontations between BLM and far-right activists, including 64 cases of personal assault, 38 attacks by cars on protesters, and nine shooting attacks, leading to at least three dead. There have been many more since.
Trump has tremendous emergency powers which he will certainly deploy by calling the election a national emergency at his first opportunity and trying to declare Martial Law, which is complicated. But Trump and his dead-enders have made a strait Martial Law seizure of total power coup d’état difficult by alienating much of the government and the nation. Anyway, if Trump tried to directly take power it would be more of a coup d’idiot, a failed putsch. Without real support from the military and the FBI and the CIA such a coup is not viable. While there are a number of ways the election can go quite wrong (from faithless electors to Russia crashing the internet) they are unlikely unless the vote is much closer than it is now. Attacking the vote seems the best option for Trump. After all, such a coup has happened before.
In 2000, rampaging Republican lawyers (I kid you not, led by Roger Stone and Joel David Kaplan, the current Facebook Vice President of U.S. Public Policy, among others) crashed into active vote counting in Miami, Florida, in the infamous “Brooks Brothers riot.” They delayed the count long enough for the U.S. Supreme Court to freeze vote rectification (“hanging chad!) with Bush ahead of Gore, even though later studies proved Gore won the state in a full and fair count. Gore was a good sport and conceded “for the good of the nation.: But then 9/11 happened and so did the Empire’s longest wars…. Still going on, actually. If the vote is close enough, such a coup by Trump could be carried out, especially in states with powerful Republicans in office who have demonstrated a total lack of principles; Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and…wait for it…. Florida (see a full list in the mini-essay “The Key States” at the end of the article.
Biden and Harris say they will insist on a fair election and not back down in the face of at attempt to steal the presidency. But what does this really mean? Going to court? Would they not accept an adverse Supreme Court ruling? We cold be in a very strange place.
Trump is so far behind it seems quite likely that he needs to steal more than one state; he needs to crash the election itself: a 12th Amendment Coup. If no candidate gets 270 electoral votes, the election then enters a complicated process governed by the 12th Amendment, and the 20th. There are many ways it can play out, some of which might go the Supreme Court… or not. Who controls the House of Representatives, the state delegations, and the Senate are all important in different ways and in different scenarios. And, crucially, it will be the new Congress (Jan. 3, 2021) that makes their decisions.
To take the 12th Amendment approach possible at all, Trump needs disruptions, probably including fatal violence, in numerous states to invalidate the votes and/or stop the counting before the Blue Wave of absentee ballots overwhelms the Trump vote, which is expected to be highest in person. And Biden can’t get 270 uncontested electoral votes. That would end it.
So how does one inspire militia and other rightwing activists to go to the polls and disrupt voting, or storm vote tabulation centers to stop the counting? Tell them it is to save the election, of course. To defend democracy. They will hear through friends, on 4Chan, Twitter, Facebook, Nextdoor, email or whatever, that illegal immigrants are being bused from precinct to precinct in Maricopa country (60% of Arizona’s vote) and patriots need to go to the polls and challenge every voter who looks illegal. Or the ballot counting in Miami and Scranton is slow because the Democrats are changing votes. Time for patriots to go and take over the process.
But where do these stories start? Actually, we have a great deal of recent experience that answers that question. In June of 2020 bands of scared, well armed, white men swarmed locked down Arizona malls (and many other places across the whole U.S.) because of reports traced to Willow Aldridge on Twitter. Willow does not exist, but whoever runs the account went to hear conservative firebrand Ben Shapiro in 2018 in Phoenix. So, rightwing trolling coordinated across the country by people with established fake accounts.
The wave of “Antifa lit the fire” rumors in Oregon led to different gangs of frightened and armed white men stopping reporters and others on backroads in the fire zones around Medford, were certainly spread by Donald Trump supporters and one specific lie seems to have been initiated by a former Republican candidate for Governor, Paul J. Romero, Jr. who came in second in the GOP primary with 100,000 votes.
The QAnon swamp amplified these stories, as they do many of the most dangerous lies loose in our culture. This is to be expected. But another amplifier of false reports about Antifa, climate change and BLM protesters are the 78 Federal-State “Fusion” centers (often co-located with FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces) that are scattered across the country. Combining officers from state and local jurisdictions with at least one Department of Homeland Security official. They trace some of their authority to the temporary and probably illegitimate Secretary of Homeland Security, Trump fanatic Chad Wolf. Their remit is to combine the intelligence from domestic sources, the CIA, NSA and the U.S. military to alert law enforcement to domestic threats and co-ordinate the response. They are governed by an unclear mix of state and federal statues and officials creating significant confusion about responsibility. While they vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, being constrained somewhat by local rules (such as those limiting San Francisco police violating privacy rights) the Blue Leaks documents prove they can be quite susceptible to wild theories about left wing protesters. Ironic, as one of their main tasks is “Election Security” including rumor control. Maricopa country in Arizona, for example, sees disinformation as a major threat to election security and the local fusion center as an asset in combating it. This could prove to be naive.
It was the white supremacist (and proudly fascist) Identity Evropa that used fake (@Antifa_US) accounts on Twitter to claim Black Lives Matter was about to invade numerous white suburbs. This set off a panic in various white enclaves across the land (Portland, Minnesota, Denver….) leading to groups of….well, you can guess the rest.
And considering their many cyber operations in Lithuania, Georgia, the Ukraine and the United States, it would be naive to think that Russian government hackers will not try and spread the specific rumors most likely to provoke violent confrontations that could seriously disrupt the elections, and give Republican legislators and/or officials the excuse to appoint their own electors, or Trump to declare a National Emergency and try and do away with the whole election, or at least much of the vote counting. Russia has already been caught encouraging racist violence around this election, as they did in 2016. As former CIA official Ned Price puts it, Russia’s twin goals are to stoke chaos and elect Trump. “They are essentially one in the same."
Finally, it was Kevin Mathewson, a Republican former alderman in Kenosha, who set up a lightly used (only a few dozen followers) Facebook site for the Kenosha Guard. But then a 17 year old in a nearby state saw the post and came to Kenosha to “protect” businesses from BLM protesters and killed two white anti-racist men. The teenaged killer is now hailed as “a hero, a Patriot” by Stuart Rhodes (founder of Oath Keepers) and a chorus of others on the extreme right, including many Republicans. Kevin Mathewson’s goal was to “start a spark that let people know there are others out here that want to defend ourselves, our lives, our neighborhoods.”
So the sparks will come from the extreme right (both within and without the Republican Party) and Russia. Perhaps international rightwing activists or state-sponsored foreign hacker nets will get involved. Probably not China or Iran, since they support Biden. Maybe Israel or Saudi Arabia. If the Taliban had hacking capabilities, they would certainly want to help Trump out. But judging on the last year of provocations, it is the Republicans, other right wing militants, and Russian government hackers (often military intelligence) who will cause most of the problems.
Who Will Decide the 2020 election?
“Don’t succumb to this culture of fear.” — ThieveryCorporation
It won’t be the U.S. military. Gen. Mark Mlle, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared:
“In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S armed forces in this process.”
In late September The New York Times reported that many Pentagon generals were saying they would resign if “ordered into the streets at the time of the election.” But some commentators argue it would be better to resist (or ignore) illegal orders, and not to just let someone down the command chain step up and obey Trump. In any event, military support for a Trump coup is not likely. Not only is Trump historically unpopular with the actual troops but the leadership has made it clear they will refuse “unlawful” orders, will not intervene in the election, and will not start a “Wag-the-Dog” war. There is a robust campaign to remind the military about their Constitutional obligations, although sometimes they argue for an unConstitutional military intervention to remove Trump.
The situation from Nov. 3 on depends a great deal on how the voting goes. The nationwide vote is roughly indicative of how many swing states, and which ones, are actually in play. Of course, these are only estimates and local issues, late breaking news, voter suppression efforts and out right fraud can make a big difference. Still, if Biden wins nationally by 7% nationally, for example, it is very unlikely that Trump can even cheat his way to victory. If Biden wins by only 1% or 2%, which is less than Hillary Clinton’s national margin, the electoral college will give Trump the victory.
At a Biden national vote victory of 3 to 6% things are in real flux. If Trump has actually won (The horror! The horror!) that is that. But if he has really lost, which is much more likely, his attempts to steal one or more states (for a listing and relevant information see “Key States” after the timeline), or throw the whole process into 12th Amendment territory, can be resisted. Trump’s options include calling for an early end to voting to disenfranchise a “blue surge” of Democratic absentee votes, just declaring himself the winner, trying to seize ballots by his agents (official or unofficial), and challenging almost everything he can in court and in the streets.
The danger is clearly concerning various elites, such as the National Task Force on Election Crisis, which has gamed the 2020 elections and sees a high potential for a collapse of democratic norms. None of this concerns Trump and his campaign; they violate democratic norms multiple times daily. We see it in the interventions by high officials to try and make Trump look good by claiming credit for giveaways, making document drops, and even corrupting justice. Attorney General Barr’s warnings (and prosecutions) about Antifa and BLM “sedition” and violations of the Insurrection Act are as telling as his refusal to denounce militia violence, including murders and a plot to kidnap and/or kill the Democratic governor of Michigan.
Trump and his enablers have mobilized to try and disrupt the elections with 50,000 Republican “poll watchers” and large numbers of the 20,000 plus or affiliated militia (a New York Times estimate) and an equal number of unaffiliated militia (a new disturbing development). This has already led to Trump volunteers trying to push into a satellite election office, which was illegal, since no voting happens there. Such aggressiveness will certainly intimidate some voters and even election officials.
The campaign calls these “poll watchers” an #ArmyForTrump and describes their role in starkly militaristic terms, such as “election security”. They can even get a MAGA camouflage hat! “Enlist Now!” orders droopy-eyed Don Jr. “to help us watch them not just on Election Day but also during early voting.” While the #ArmyForTrump thread is full of threats of violence against the enemies of Trump, it also has become a popular place for KPop fans to show their disdain for the Trumpista Army.
There is a rapidly growing left-wing militia as well, especially among African-Americans.For example, the NFAC (Not Fucking Around Coalition) turned out over 1,000 armed African Americans at Stone Mountain in Georgia (birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan) on July 4th, 2020. There are numerous integrated groups of progressives with guns as well, including Red Neck Rebellion founded in 2016. So far the deadly violence in the streets has been always initiated by the right wing, as individuals or small teams killing (police in several cases) out of panic or calculation. The one or two fatal killings by progressives were overreactions, not initiated violence, But now it seems likely that there will be larger confrontations, gun battles actually, between organized factions, in some cases literally black vs. white. Such confrontations seem most likely in the 31 states that allow unlicensed open carry, or the 15 that require licenses to openly display guns. So, most of the country.
Progressives and Democrats are also mobilizing to “de-escalate” (I would say confront) far-right intimidation and violence at the polls. This includes large coalitions, such as Protect The Results (Move-On, Indivisible, Code Pink, 350.org, and many others), Protect the Vote (many of the same members, and state groups such as the Arizona Advocacy Network) which links volunteers to groups they call “front-line defenders.” But many specific groups are mobilizing, including The Women’s March, Working Families Party, Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project, United. We Dream and others.
Choose Democracy, a collective of peace activists, has put forward a very useful list of “10 things You Need to Know to Stop a Coup” that includes not expecting results Election night, calling a coup a coup, being ready to act with others, and so on. They emphasize taking the high road with nonviolence and building alliances to defend democracy and the rule of law. They draw on George Lakoff’s research along with Maria J. Stephan (co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolence Conflict), Candace Rondeaux, and Erica Chenoweth. Together they authored “Preparing For a November Surprise.”
Other researchers have been quite helpful, such as the Georgetown Law School project to put out fact sheets on the legal issues relevant to “Resisting Militia” for all 50 states.
In the end, the real “deciders” are the people of America, by what we do before the vote (as in vote!), during the vote, and after the vote. Bernie Sanders has given us some good advice, as he warns of Trump rejecting the election. We can strengthen elections processes, resist delegitimization attempts on social media and in the culture as large, specific reforms to protect against “Red Mirage”, where the post election counting of Biden absentee ballot votes allows Trump and his enablers to claim a Trump victory. Bernie even goes so far as to say, “This is not just a ‘constitutional crisis.’ This is a threat to everything this country stands for.”
All good, but he won’t say at this point if people should go to the streets to defend the vote.
This is a mistake. People will go into the street, whether the Democratic Party calls for it or not. Once we are in the streets, what then? Francis Fox Piven and Deepak Bhargava have written one of the best articles on What if Trump Won’t Leave? They warn that:
Democratic Party operatives, good-government types, an army of constitutional lawyers, and other self-appointed experts will urge us not to “politicize” the process, to wait patiently and talk about the “rule of law,” to not “prejudge the results” — to trust the process and the courts, to stay home and let the smart boys in D.C. work things out on our behalf. We need to ignore such advice and take to the streets.
We must “trust People Power” they insist, and if you want to Defend the Vote you should reach out to everyone you know, and many people you don’t know such as local officials, mobilize social movement groups to prepare for “nonviolent civil disobedience” (and one presumes direct action), or as John Lewis calls it, “good trouble.” People should economically target institutions and rich people defending Trump and in particular give mutual aid and other support to Defend the Vote movements in the key states that could allow Trump to steal the election if they are disrupted (see the list at the end of this article).
Sign the pledge to “choose democracy” by voting, refusing to accept the election until all the votes are counted, taking to the streets to oppose a coup, and “shut down the country” if necessary to “protect the integrity of the democratic process. The ShutdownDC activist net, which started around climate change protests, is organizing for mass protests on election day and beyond.
The power of large public mobilizations cannot be denied. Peace researchers such as Gene Sharp have shown that mass direct action might be necessary to keep Trump from stealing the election. But there needs to be clarity on what people want and what they are willing to do to gain it, up to and including a General Strike.
It may come to that, but it seems attention should first be given to actually defending the vote, preventing Trump disrupters from interfering with voting itself, and with vote counting, as happened with the Brooks Brothers riot. But this time it won’t just be lawyers, many of the Trump supporters will have guns. There will almost certainly be deaths. American elections have been violent in the past. Alex Jones is calling for the preemptive killing of “Maoists” who he claims are stockpiling weapons and explosives: “…the best thing to do in a defensive way is to kill as many of them as quickly as possible.”
Roughly 20% of Americans on both sides of the Trump divide believe “violence is justified if the other side wins.” The noted journalist Chris Hedges thinks widespread violence is almost inevitable.
So a Save the Vote campaign must address physical violence. We have seen violence break out in various BLM and anti-Fascist protests already. In Portland, the left has been responsible for a MAGA supporter being shot to death (perhaps in self-defense), businesses burned and a fire set in an apartment building (because the Democratic Mayor lives there), and street fighting Antifa and BLM protesters have escalated to molotov cocktails. When it is well documented that the rightwing militias have a strategy of promulgating violence at BLM and Antifa protests, including starting fires, destroying property, assassinating Federal agents and local sheriffs (this last in my hometown) as agent provocateurs and attacking protesters with cars and guns.
One doesn’t have to be a pacifist to think that the civilian defenders of the vote, of the Constitution, should be unarmed and committed to nonviolence. That won’t be the case, however. But the majority of people in the streets will be acting peacefully. This is no guarantee of peace. If there are not only left wing and right wing protesters with weapons, even guns, but also police (even National Guard), it will be volatile.
As someone who has been protesting in the streets and in my life for 50 years I have to say these times are as fraught in the U.S. as any I have lived through. But it might surprise many people that I see the “arc of the moral universe” Martin Luther King promised bending sharper than ever “toward justice.” It is because of demographics and is the result of years of social change going back directly to the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1950s. It is a crude measurement, but consider how many people were willing to support outright racists in presidential elections over these last 70 years. When that movement started, both parties were uncommitted (to put it mildly) to racial, economic, and gender justice in the United States. Support for open racism must have been at least 70%. In the 1972 election, Richard Nixon with his racist “Southern Strategy” got over 60% of the vote against George McGovern. In 2012 Romney got 47.2% of the vote against President Obama. Today, October 13, Trump sits at 41.9% (538 aggregate). We are winning. It is a long march but we are changing this country for the better. More good people will die, that is the price of justice. But we will not forget them, and deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome.
Chris Hables Gray
October 13, 2020
The Timeline
Note: Some absentee voting started September 4! Some states start counting votes before election day. Several such key states are listed here. No results are announced anywhere until the polls close in that state. There is still open litigation, especially Republican appeals in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, in a number of states on the mailing date for valid absentee ballots.
October
October 12. Signature verification and vote counting starts in Florida.
October 15. NO Second Presidential Debate
October 20. For some states, deadline to safely mail in ballots.
Vote counting starts in Arizona.
Vote counting starts in North Carolina.
October 22. Third Presidential Debate
November
November 3. Election Day
November 6. Ballots that arrive by this date in Pennsylvania can be counted if no
proof they were mailed after election day. (Penn. Supreme Court)
November 9. Ballots that arrive by this date in Wisconsin can be counted as long as
they are postmarked by Nov. 3. (Federal judge)
November 12. Ballots that arrive by this date in North Carolina can be counted as
long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. (Election commission
proposal, still needs to be approved by a judge.)
November e17. Ballots that arrive by this date in Michigan can be counted as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 2 (not 3!). (State judge).
December
December 14 Electoral College meets and elects President. Or not.
January
January 3. Newly elected Congress starts.
January 6. Electoral votes counted in front of a joint session of Congress.
If there is no winner, there is a vote by states (1 vote for each, decided by a
vote of the state’s Representatives). If still no candidate with a majority, it
gets really complicated with the Senate playing the main role.
January 20. Inauguration of the next President of the United States. If none has
been chosen yet by Congress, it is the Speaker of the House of
Representatives. But she does not have to be an incumbent member of the
House. The Democrats, for example, could elect Biden speaker after the new
Congress is formed January 3.
The Key States
Below are the states where the vote might be close enough that Republicans could disrupt and then hijack the process. In states that voted for Biden/Harris the Republican legislatures and other elected officials would replace Biden/Harris electors withTrump’s. This involves disrupting the vote, with threats and even violence, and counting (by some of the GOP’s 50,000 poll watchers, militia, or others), calling the vote or vote counting into question legally through the courts (for which they have many lawyers but much less in the way of actual legal evidence), or just making shit up.
Key issues are 1) What Party is the Governor, 2) What Party is the Secretary of State (who oversees voting and often certifies the electors), 3) What party controls the legislature? 4) How partisan is the State Supreme Court? 5) How close was the vote actually? and 6) what is the applicable law on poll watching, voting fraud, vote counting, and appointing electors.
If Biden/Harris wins by a large enough margin, Trump could even lose states such as Texas. So this is not a listing of states that could go either way. It is a listing of states Trump won in 2016 that he could lose this election. The only state Clinton won that he might win by most calculations is Nevada. Basically he is on defense.
Still, every one these states has an aggressive and armed rightwing movement and at least one major elected Republican player who could use what happens as an excuse to invalidate the actual results, throwing the issue to Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States. The same is true of the other states Trump carried in 2016 that with current polling shows Biden could win this election: Montana, Texas, South Carolina, Alaska, Kansas. Even with a Biden landslide, if there is enough militia and Republican disruption, Trump can steal this election.
In alphabetical order, these Swing States are:
(538 aggregate of polls, Oct. 13)
Arizona
Polls: 3.8% lead for Biden (Oct. 13)
Governor: Republican
Secretary of State: Democrat
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican
Possible election night call.
Florida
Polls: 4.6% lead for Biden (Oct. 13)
Governor: Republican
Secretary of State: Republican
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican
Possible election night call.
Georgia
Polls: 1.1% lead for Biden (Oct. 13)
Governor: Republican
Secretary of State: Republican
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican
Slow ballot count.
Iowa
Polls: 1.1% Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Republican
Secretary of State: Republican
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican
Possible election night call.
Michigan
Polls: 8.0% lead for Biden (Oct. 13)
Governor: Democrat
Secretary of State: Democrat
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican, and without conscience.
Slow ballot count.
Nevada
Polls: 6.4% Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Democrat
Secretary of State: Republican
Legislature: Democrat
State Supreme Court: Democrat
Slow ballot count.
North Carolina
Polls: 3.1% Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Democrat
Secretary of State: Democrat
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Democrat
Slow ballot count.
Ohio
Polls: 0.3 Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Republican
Secretary of State: Republican
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican
Possible Election Night call.
Pennsylvania
Polls: 7.2% Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Democrat
Secretary of State: Democrat
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Democrats
Slow ballot count.
Wisconsin
Polls: 7.7% Biden lead (Oct. 13)
Governor: Democrat
Secretary of State: Democrat
Legislature: Republican
State Supreme Court: Republican, and remarkably corrupt
Slow ballot count.
References
Alvarez, Priscilla and Geneva Sands (2020) “DHS leaders, filling jobs on temporary basis, carry out Trump agenda,” CNN, July 20.
Andrew, Scottie (2020) “Georgetown created fact sheets on illegal militias at the pools and what to do if you spot them,” CNN, October 6.
Anglen, Rober, Richard Ruelas and Lorraine Longhi (2020) “Fake social media posts incite fear of suburban marauders, rape and murder across the U.S.,” Arizona Republic, June 4.
Associated Press (2020) “Top general says no role for military in presidential vote,” Politico, August 28
Bacon Jr., Perry (2020) “Five Ways Trump and the GOP Officials Are Undermining The Election Process,” FiveThirtyEight, Aug. 11.
Beaujon, Andrew (2020) “The White House Has Become a Militarized Island in Downtown DC,” Washingtonian, August 3.
Bernstein, Maxine (2020) “Feds start leveling rare civil disorder charges against demonstrators for alleged violence at Portland protests,” The Oregonian, Sept. 3.
Blake, John (2020) “The election scenario that should frighten everyone — especially Black America,” CNN, September 26.
Brennan Center for Justice, (2020) “A Guide to Emergency Powers and Their Use: The 136 statutory powers that may become available to the president upon declaration of a national emergency,” Originally published December 5, 2018. Updated April 24, 2020.
Blum, Bill (2020) “Fearing jail and facing defeat, Trump will not leave office quietly,” Salon, July 16.
Blumenthal, Paul (2020) “Trump Wouldn’t Be The First Republican to Cry ‘Voter Fraud’ to Contest A Loss,” Huffpost, October 7.
Derysh, Igor (2020) “Russia trying to ‘incite violence by white supremacists groups’ in US ahead of 2020 election: report.” Salon, March 10.
Devega, Chauncey (2020) “Investigative journalist Greg Palast: Here’s how Trump will steal the 2020 election,” Salon, June 15.
Devereaux, Ryan (2020) “Leaked Documents Show Police Knew Far-Right Extremists Were The Real Threat At Protests, Not ‘Antifa’,” The Intercept, July 15.
Diamond, Larry, Lee Drutman et. al. (2020) “Americans Increasingly Believe Violence is Justified if the Other Side Wins,” Politico Magazine, October 1, 2020.
Douglas, Lawrence (2020) “What if Trump loses but refuse to leave office? Here’s the worst-case scenario,” The Guardian, July 27.
Durkee, Alison (2020) “William Barr Totally Blows Trump’s Bunker Cover Story,” Vanity Fair, June 9.
Fassler, Ella (2020) “Progressive Groups are Mobilizing to De-Escalate Far Right Violence at the Polls,” Truthout, Oct. 1.
FiveThirtyEight panel (2020) “Trump Can’t Postpone The Election, But He Can Delegitimize The Results,” FiveThirtyEight, July 30.
Flaccus, Gillian (2020) “Portland protesters target city’s Mayor amid rising tensions,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 2.
Gabbatt, Adam (2020) “How the domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor unravelled,” The Guardian, Oct. 9.
Giglio, Mike (2020) “A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans,” The Atlantic, November issue.
Gray, Chris Hables (Crystal Ray) (2017a) “Is a Trump Coup Possible?” Daily Kos, June 7.
_____ (2017b) “Trump Coup Scorecard,” Daily Kos, June 7.
German, Mike (2020) “The FBI warned for years that police are cozy with the far right. Is no one listening?” The Guardian, August 28.
Graff, Garrett M. (2020) “The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents,” Politico Magazine, June 6.
Guffey, Robert (2020) Four-Part series on QAnon, published on Guffey’s site cryptoscatology and in Salon as well, August 16 to September 7.
Harris, John (2020) “Why Trump Might Quit,” Politico, July 30.
Hedges, Chris (2020) “American bloodlines: In a deeply polarized nation, mass violence is not far away,” Salon, September 10
Hennessy-Fiske, Molly and Jaweed Kaleem (2020) “What if armed, far-right groups go to the polls? Some plan to,” Los Angeles Times/SF Chronicle, Oct. 11 updated.
Isenstadt, Alex and Natasha Korecki (2020) “Trump campaign ready to unleash thousands of poll watchers on Election Day,” Politico, October 8.
Kaplan, Fred (2020a) “Is America in the Early Sages of Armed Insurgency?” Slate, Sept. 8.
_____(2020b) “The Generals Won’t Save American Democracy,” Slate, August 12.
Kates, Graham (2020) “Twitter says fake ‘Antifa’ account was run by white supremacists,” CBS News, June 2.
Kayyali, Dia (20214) “Why Fusion Centers Matter: FAQ,” EFF, April 7.
Levine, Sam (2020) “Republicans devote $20m and 50,000 people to efforts to restrict voting,” The Guardian, May 18.
Mackey, Robert (2020) “Oregon Police Beg Public to Stop Calling In False Reports Blaming Antifa for Wildfires,” The Intercept, September 10.
Marcotte, Amanda (2020a) “Right-wing conspiracy theorists get (even more) unsigned as Trump’s chances fade,” Salon, August 5.
_____ (2020b) “Right-wing talk about ‘sedition’ and the Insurrection Act has one purpose; Stealing the election,” Salon, September 17.
Mathias, Christopher (2020a) “White Vigilantes Have Always Had A Friend In Police,” Huffington Post, August 28.
_____ (2020b) “Man in Militia Plot to Kidnap Michigan Governor Shared Stage With Extremist Sheriff,” Huffpost, October 9,
Mazza, Ed (2020) “Veterans Group Says Trump Is Panicking As Poll shows Military Backs Biden,” HuffPost, September 3.
Ortega, Josh (2020) “Maricopa official: Disinformation poses threat to election security,” Tucson Sentinel, September 24.
Nagl, John and Paul Yingling (2020) “‘…All Enemies Foreign and Domestic’: An Open Letter to Gen. Milley,” DefenseOne, August 11.
O’Sullivan, Donie and Konstantin Torpin (2020) “QAnon fans spread fake claims about real fires in Oregon,” CNNBusiness, September 11.
Otterbein, Holly (2020) “Sanders: America must be prepared for when Trump refuses to leave office,” Politico, Sept. 4.
Parton, Heather Digby (2020) “When Donald Trump tried to stage a coup: Was June1 the turning point?” Salon, June 12.
Pilkington, Ed (2020) “‘Our worst nightmare’: will militias heed Trump’s call to watch the polls?” The Guardian, Oct. 9.
Piven, Francis Fox and Deepak Bhargava (2020) “What if Trump Won’t Leave?” The Intercept, August 11.
Rakich, Nathaniel (2020) “Why Four Pivotal Swing States Likely Won’t Be Called On Election Night,” FiveThirtyEight, September 25.
Rosenber, Paul (2020) “When elections lead to violence: It’s happened before — and we’re heading that way now,” Salon, August 15.
Samuels, Brett (2020) “Trump raises idea of delaying election,” The Hill, July 30.
Schmookler, Andy (2020) “Pentagon ‘Resignations’ Aren’t good Enough in the Face of an Attempted Coup,” Daily Kos, September 26.
Schwarz, Jon (2020) “Democrats Should Remember Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 - But Lost the Presidency With a Pre-Emptive Surrender,” The Intercept, November 10
Seipel, Brooke (2020) “Security for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago visits cost local taxpayers $13 million,” The Hill, January 17.
Sharp, Gene (2020) “Mass direct action might be the only way to stop Trump from stealing the election,” Waging Nonviolence, August 27.
Shortell, David, Chrstina Carrega and Josh Camppbell (2020) “Vigilante group activity on rise, worrying law enforcement and watchdog groups,” CNN, August 30, update.
Stahl, Jeremy (2020) “The 10 Scariest Election Scenarios, Ranked,” Slate, August 14.
Stephan, Maria J., Candace Rondeaux, and Erica Chenoweth (20202) “Preparing for a November Surprise,” Political Violence At A Glance, July 21.
Sollenberger, Roger (2020) “K-Pop fans infiltrate #ArmyForTrump after Trump recruits ‘army’ to show up at polls on Election Day,” Salon, October 2.
Waldman, Michael and Wendy Weiser (2020) “6 Reasons Not to Panic About the Election,” Politico Magazine, Oct. 5
Wilkerson, Lawrence (2020) “What if Trump Won’t Go,” Interview, the Analysis.news, June 29.
Wilson, Jason (2020a) “US sheriffs rebel against state mask orders even as Covid-19 spreads,” The Guardian, July 31.
_____(2020b) “Portland suffers serious street violence as far right return ‘prepared to fight’” in The Guardian, August 28.
______(2020c) “Breadth of rightwing Portland protest network reveals energized Trump Base,” The Guardian, Sept. 3.
