What if President Donald Trump loses and wont leave the White House? Amherst College professors book explor – MassLive.com

What if President Donald J. Trump loses the election but just says no? What if he just wont leave?

Preposterous in more normal times, the potential for this scenario is described by Amherst College professor Lawrence Douglas in a new book, Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. Its an ominous, even chilling examination of what could result from the loopholes in the U.S. presidential election process, coupled with unprecedented modern circumstances and a president unlike any before him.

President Trump sees no daylight between his political fortunes and the good of the country, says Douglas, a professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought. Douglas premises are based not just on the presidents behavior, but on ambiguities in the Constitutions election process, which has changed very little since the first election in 1788.

He separates himself from the common fear by anti-Trump observers, which is that the president will react to an Electoral College defeat by simply barricading himself in the White House, declaring martial law or using his powers as commander-in-chief (which remain in place until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20) to essentially keep power by a coup.

Instead, he envisions Trump possibly blaming defeat on fraudulent or tampered voting, regardless of whether any such proof exists, and refusing to recognize the results.

Im not embracing what Joseph Biden said, which is that Trump could be frog-marched out of the White House (by the military), Douglas says. Rather, the professor points to an archaic method of using electoral votes (which produce 51 distinctively separate elections at once), a possibly very close vote, and the likelihood of massive mail-in by citizens fearing COVID-19 exposure at the polls.

Amherst College professor Lawrence Douglas says unprecedented circumstances and a president unwilling to accept unfavorable outcomes could create a 2020 election crisis.

American elections have not always gone smoothly. The popular vote winner (who received the most individual peoples votes) has lost five times, most recently in 2000 and 2016.

Twice in our early history, the election was settled in the House of Representatives, which becomes the arbiter if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the electoral vote. In 1876, a special panel had to cut a deal to break a deadlock over disputed votes in three states an arrangement that ended post-Civil War reconstruction and robbed African-Americans in the South of many protections.

The 2000 election between George W. Bush and Albert Gore was decided by a deeply-divided U.S. Supreme Court, a decision Douglas still believes was driven more by politics than law. Alleged vote-counting shenanigans in Texas and Illinois still cast a shadow, in some Republican minds at least, over John F. Kennedys 1960 win over Richard M. Nixon.

None of these elections had the added variables of multiple faithless electors (who ignore their states popular vote by casting their own, personal Electoral College vote), a likely explosion of mail-in voting (which accounted for one quarter of the 2016 ballots and figures to soar in the COVID-19 age), and Trumps willingness to attach fraud to results that dont go his way.

To Douglas, this goulash of laws and emotions could produce an all-time test of the most fundamental tenet of a democracy the ability to stage an election whose results are indisputable. His book was published this spring by Twelve, an imprint of the Hatchette Book Groups Grand Central Publishing.

Mail-in ballots come more commonly from people in densely populated districts. Those areas often vote Democratic. Its called the blue shift. Some of those votes arent tallied until days or weeks after the election, Douglas says.

This could create a scenario by which Trump would be leading on Election Night, only to see the numbers swing to Democratic nominee Biden in subsequent days or weeks.

If that were to happen, its easy to see Trump screaming foul and just as easy to see his supporters in agreement.

Americans expect to know who won by 11 oclock on Election Night, Douglas said. That did not happen in 2000. He sees more reason to think it wont happen on Nov. 3.

Douglas is certainly no fan of Trump, but he does acknowledge that mail-in voting can be susceptible to confusion, especially if done in great numbers. Given Trumps propensity for blaming others, that could give the president an opening justified in his mind, and with or without proof to refuse to acknowledge the result of a defeat, Douglas reasons.

Mail-in ballots have historically been undercounted. They have to be signed, and the signatures are checked, the author says. Questionable signatures often cause ballots to be thrown out.

Douglas said faithless electors must be considered. Of the 538 electors (appointed within their individual states to formally cast electoral votes and certify the outcome), a total of 10 tried to vote contrary to the wishes of their states constituency in 2016.

Seven succeeded. That was the highest number in the countrys history, discounting the 1872 election, when candidate Horace Greeley died before the Electoral Vote was counted.

Of the 50 states, 18 do not constrain their electors to follow the (popular) vote. Some others fine or punish those who dont follow the peoples vote, but the vote still counts, Douglas says.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing a case to determine whether state governments have the power to nullify faithless electors votes. At issue is that when the Founding Fathers created the electoral system, Alexander Hamilton and many other leaders saw no problem in having individual electors rectify supposed mistakes by the uninformed voters, a practice that would cause fury today if it altered an election, but which some Constitutional experts insist is legal.

If enough faithless electors chose candidates other than Trump or Biden, leaving neither with the required majority of 270 for victory, the House of Representatives would elect the president (one vote per state delegation). That last happened in 1824. The Senate would pick the vice-president. Douglas says that in one deadlock-riddled scenario, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could wind up in the Oval Office.

Ridiculous? Not to Douglas, who points to an almost even split of Democratic and Republican House delegations, and the unknown factor of the Nov. 3 House election results.

Three crucial swing states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) have Democratic governors but GOP-controlled state houses. That could lead to in-state disputes over which election results would be certified or even which electors would be seated.

It adds up to a potentially frightening mess, a tangle of election loopholes, a nation almost evenly split into two polarized factions, and a president who, Douglas feels, has shown ample willingness to manipulate the Constitution to his own liking.

The best way to avoid this (controversy) would be if one candidate won decisively. That would certainly weaken any argument from the other, he says.