Challenges to election results are not new in the United States. But former president Donald Trump and his allies took election challenges to a new extreme in 2020, Reuters reports.
Trump and his supporters falsely alleged widespread voter fraud and claimed the presidential election was stolen by Joe Biden.
This year, Trump-aligned candidates are refusing to say whether they will accept the November midterm election results.
Many are already citing the same conspiracy theories about 2020.
Fears have been raised across the nation among election experts that there will be a wave of baseless rejections of vote tallies this year.
How could the challenges to the elections play out?
Sometimes there are vote recounts, which has become relatively common in the U.S., especially in local elections where results can often be close.
But rarely do vote recounts alter the outcome.
In 22 states as well as in Washington, D.C., a recount is automatically triggered if the margin of victory is sufficiently narrow. It is typically set at 0.5%.
A candidate or voter can request a recount in 41 states and Washington, D.C. But some states require vote totals to be within a specific margin.
A study by Fair Vote, a nonpartisan group, in 2019 found there had been 31 statewide recounts between 2000 and 2019 out of nearly 6,000 contests, and that just three had changed the outcome.
Another option, if there are claims of election fraud, could be litigation. Post-election lawsuits are a frequent occurrence in the U.S. They often focus on procedural issues, for example, whether mail-in ballots were missing information or if they arrived on time.
In 2020, Trump allies sought to weaponize the court system even when there was little factual basis to their claims whatsoever.
Dozens of courts rejected the allegations.
But the sheer scope of the effort could encourage Trump-aligned candidates to attempt similar litigation in 2022.
Experts said that election denialism has been embraced by so many candidates running for top positions in 2022, that it can be expected there will be a barrage of baseless claims of fraud and misconduct.
Another route election deniers could take is through certification. Election results are not formal until they have been certified by election officials.
The U.S. election administration is highly decentralized, which is unlike most Western countries. The certification process varies from state to state. Local authorities certify results first before state officials do.
This decentralization means there are multiple points where a rogue official could disrupt the process.
Several election experts said they are more concerned about the 2024 election than 2022, given how many Trump-inspired election deniers are running for key positions this year.
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