For so many American voters, participating in a U.S. election means going to the polls on the first Tuesday in November, watching the electoral returns on their favorite network, seeing which candidate gets over 270 Election College votes, and then seeing which candidate will be sworn in or reelected as the president of the United States on Jan. 20 the following year. In the history of this relatively young democracy, there has never been a time when the United States did not have a peaceful transference of power. Sadly, this election season is very different.
It is imperative we set realistic expectations for election night. It is also very important to educate your friends and family members so they are not swayed or misinformed on social media or from the president himself.
Due to the unusually large number of voters who have requested absentee ballots and are mailing their ballot as opposed to voting in person, counting ballots will likely take much longer this election season and all of the absentee ballots may not be counted by the end of election night. This will likely occur because many states have rules where the counting of absentee and mail in ballots is not allowed until the polls actually close on Nov. 3. Therefore, even if you mailed in your ballot weeks ahead of the election, your sealed ballot may be sitting in the Board of Elections and will not be opened until Election Day. Some states will even count absentee ballots up to a week after election night as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. Thus, those ballots will be counted until Nov. 10 in some states, and if the election is close, all ballots will need to be securely counted and allocated to the respective candidate.
Since the president nor the vice president have committed to a peaceful transfer of power and the president has explicitly stated he will wait to see whether or not he has won the election to determine whether or not fraud has occurred, we should brace ourselves for delays in the declaration of a winner, possible white domestic terrorists being encouraged by a sitting president, and/or a possible chaotic democratic process. Some analysts fear this election could be more chaotic than the 2000 election, across more states than just Florida, and the addition of armed white vigilantes being encouraged by the sitting president of the United States.
Since the media has been complicit in normalizing the undemocratic behavior of the president, we must brace ourselves for an election night we have never experienced before.
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University, political editor at The Grio, the author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC. You can find her at @Dr_CMGreer on Twitter.