What could happen on Election Day?

SANDUSKY — Is it just us, or do people seem really worried about this year's election? Forecasts of doom don't always turn out to be correct, thank goodness. Remember the Y2K computer bug, the one that was supposed to knock out computers on Jan. 1, 2000, and cause airplanes to crash? Despite the hysteria, there were few problems. So maybe the general election on Nov. 3 will go OK, or at least will be no worse than usual. Still, it's not hard to find headlines such as "3 ways the 2020 election could go very wrong" and "2020 election: The worst-case scenarios we're not prepared for." Many of the worries are connected, and not really separated from each other. In any case, here are four of the possible problems being discussed: • Long delays in counting votes will raise doubts. While Ohio has generally done pretty well in getting the votes counted in a reasonable amount of time, other states have struggled. A November 2018 Associated Press article noted for "every election, it takes weeks for Arizona to count its ballots. But as the Democrat in the tight U.S. Senate race there jumped into the lead in the latest results, some Republicans have raised baseless allegations of fraud." The Democrat in that Arizona race, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, was declared the winner almost a week after election day in 2018. President Trump criticized the results while ballots were still being counted. • Disruption caused by the pandemic, including the use of more mail-in ballots, will cause more election chaos than usual, raising doubts about the legitimacy of the outcome. During earlier elections this year, many states struggled with a lack of polling workers. (Poll workers tend to be elderly, i.e. the people who are most vulnerable to COVID-19.) And the shift to using more mail-in ballots could complicate the process of counting. Many polling locations had to be moved, as carrying out voting in, for example, nursing homes no longer seems like a good idea. • Trump will win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote. Under the United States Constitution, the presidency is won by the candidate who wins the most Electoral College votes. In a landslide, the winning candidate wins both the popular vote and also wins the Electoral College tally. But in two recent elections, the Democrat won more votes but lost the election. Hillary Clinton won 48.2 percent of the popular vote in 2016, versus 46.1 percent for Trump. Al Gore won 48.4 percent of the popular vote in 2000, compared to 47.9 percent for the candidate who won the election, George W. Bush. If history repeats itself and Trump wins the election despite getting fewer votes, Biden's supporters are unlikely to take it well. • One of the losers will simply refuse to accept the outcome, and encourage supporters to resist accepting it. Democracy, and the peaceful transfer of power after an election, hinges on all sides accepting the outcome once the votes are in. Trump has repeatedly refused to flatly state he'll accept the results if he appears to have lost. In July, for example, when he was pressed on the matter in a Fox News interview by Chris Wallace, Trump said, "I have to see." Biden has avoided making such provocative remarks and has promised to accept the election results. Still, if there are doubts about whether Biden really lost, he'll come under heavy pressure to avoid going quietly.