Top 4 Reasons the 2016 Election Could End in Chaos

by Jim Duncan

Follow Jim on Twitter or Medium

Is there a chance the election doesn’t actually end on November 8?

Most people assume that once the popular vote for president is cast, a clear winner will immediately be declared. Then, everyone hopes, they can go back to relegating American politics to a partially ignored pastime. But are there any reasons that might not be the case?

Obviously, for the election to not end cleanly on November 8, the vote totals can’t be a landslide in one direction or the other. Any news you currently hear about this election being a blowout by one side however, is probably a bit premature. As Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics notes, Trump has already come back from larger deficits in shorter time, and several polls differ on who is leading and by how much.

As bizarre as this election cycle has been, there are a lot of scenarios where the popular vote could still end up being historically close (consider more Wikileaks dumps). And given the passions involved, the general distrust of both candidates, and the animosity between both bases, if the election’s ending is narrow, then November 8 might not be any sort of conclusion, but the beginning of a much more convoluted and nasty dispute over who actually won. Continuing until… who knows?

So here are four big reasons why your hope that everything quiets down after November 8 might not come true…

1. Both Candidates’ Encouragement to Distrust The Election’s Conclusion

Photo Courtesy of The Atlantic
Photo Courtesy of The Atlantic

Our country has thus far had a flawless record of peacefully transferring power from one government to the next over the past 240 years. This is largely due to all those participating valuing the idea of the Constitution over their own need to win. Can we expect this same sort of idealistic altruism from our two major party candidates this time?

Already, both candidates’ teams are ratcheting up their accusations that the other side is potentially manipulating the election’s outcome.

Donald Trump has definitively stated on numerous occasions that there is a chance the election will be stolen from him. Multiple times he has encouraged his supporters to watch for it, and to not stand for it.

Hillary Clinton’s team has also strongly insinuated that Donald Trump is actively working with the Russians to hack into secure Democratic information in order to sway the election toward the Republicans.

The most troubling thing is that they are possibly both right. If die-hards on either the right or left are encouraged to see it, finding things that look like fraud in a close popular vote might not be that hard. And what happens then?

A woman at a recent Mike Pence rally even asked the Republican VP candidate if it would be time for a “revolution” if their side lost. Fanatical liberals probably won’t be any happier if they think the election is dishonestly taken from them.

The disputed election of 2000 largely avoided becoming a constitutional crisis because Al Gore accepted the Supreme Court decision regarding Florida and conceded to George W. Bush rather than create a protracted battle over who won. Given the character and temperament exhibited by Bush throughout his presidency, it is unlikely that he would have pushed the need to win to a point of damage for the country as a whole either. Yet even with two largely “reasonable” candidates, that process still took over a month to resolve.

Do we really think Trump or Clinton is going to make a selfless decision if they are in a similar situation? Or will they actually encourage their bases to continue fighting for power?

Obviously, our best chance of avoiding this troubling scenario would be if there were a clear, definitive winner that matches an overwhelming popular vote for one candidate or the other. Unfortunately, just like the election of 2000 reiterated, our electoral system isn’t designed to have that happen.

Which brings us to reason number 2 there could be chaos at the election’s end…

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