America: 2 Months of Bated Breath Will Follow the Vote

Without a clear result, America (and the world) will hold its breath for two months, with the deadlines for absentee ballots, recounts and state appeals extending throughout November into mid-December. It will require patience, as well as faith in America’s institutions.

While the U.S. has already begun to vote — the mail-in ballot has begun in Alabama, while North Carolina recalled the first ballots after a court ordered the state to reprint them without Robert Kennedy Jr.’s name after he withdrew from the race — Kamala Harris’ path to the White House remains uphill. However, her clear victory in the debate with her Republican opponent, something that enhances the chance she will push through to victory on Nov. 5, has also again put everyone on red alert over the archaic and complex voting process, which varies from state to state. This is especially true because Donald Trump continues to maintain that the Democrats can only win by cheating. If he loses, it goes without saying that he will contest the results, as he is mentally incapable of considering the possibility of defeat. There is the very real risk of a new “Stop the Steal” effort, similar to four years ago.

In light of this, the government has designated the Jan. 6, 2025 congressional ballot certification (the final act before the inauguration of the new president) as a national special security event. The Secret Service will deploy a massive force to defend Capitol Hill to avoid the kind of assault that took place in January 2021. But if another attack on the Capitol is fairly unlikely, this time the danger could occur much earlier in states around the country because of voting process breakdowns (the U.S. postal service, which is in crisis, may struggle to send and receive paper ballots before the deadline, while some states have passed new regulations that could facilitate political influence), and to legal challenges. There will no last minute appeals like those Trump filed in 2020. This time, the Republicans have recruited more than 100,000 volunteers to monitor the voting process in key states, while their lawyers have already issued hundreds of peremptory challenges (such as requesting the removal of 500,000 names from Arizona’s voter rolls) in preparation for an offensive of post-vote appeals.

Without a clear result, America (and the world) will hold its breath for two months, with the deadlines for absentee ballots, recounts and state appeals extending throughout November into mid-December. It will require patience, as well as faith in America’s institutions. The America of today has neither one nor the other.