The upcoming presidential electoral contest in the United States has become the center of the world's attention, given the possibility of re-election of Donald Trump that would give continuity to a management marked by unilateralism, threats and coercive measures against his opposites and by the other side opens the opportunity for the election of a Democratic administration and with it a new opportunity for negotiation.
Currently, all polls give the Democratic candidate the advantage Joe Biden, before which his rival, has decided to turn his strategy in attacks against the American electoral system.
“With universal voting by mail (not absentee voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE AND FRAUDULENT election ever. It will be a great embarrassment to the United States. Delaying the election until people can vote properly, and safely? ”Was the comment that started this new strategy.
This speech by Trump has had a place within American society and the world, given the deficient nature of his second-degree election system, which in the last two decades has occupied the limelight in every North American election.
Bush-Gore case
On November 7, 2000, after almost two centuries of republican life, the United States system was exposed, demolishing the myth of "example of democracy", when world public opinion watched as George Bush, who had lost the popular vote, won the presidency against his rival, the Democrat Al Gore.
The controversy began when the media gave Gore the winner of the election by obtaining the 27 votes from Florida, information that changed around 2:00 a.m. when CNN changed the speech and pointed to Bush as the winner, an action that they instantly emulated all the American media and agencies.
In the midst of this change, the Democratic candidate decided to send a commission of technicians from his party to witness the recount that would take place in Florida, considering that there was a manipulation of the results. The count revealed a tiny 237-vote lead for Bush over Gore, and when the votes of a county that was presumed to favor the Democrat had to be counted, the Supreme Court intervened to order the end of the recount and declare the republic as president-elect.
This dispute that lasted 36 days caused a stir in American society that seemed to ignore the uniqueness of its second-degree election system, where the popular vote does not decide.
Despite the scandal that arose around this fight, according to the publication «The Electoral College: 270 Votes to Win_eJournal USA»This was not the first time that in the United States the electoral colleges gave as the winner the candidate who lost in the popular vote, since this had been raised in 1824, 1876 and 1888.
Trump-Clinton case
After twelve years where the electoral colleges favored the winning candidate by erasing the scandal of 2000, in the electoral process of 2016 they are once again the center of attention by granting the triumph to the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, despite having lost in the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, against his rival the Democrat Hillary Clinton.
On this occasion, candidate Clinton decided not to appeal this decision as it was not favored by the vote in key states and as a measure to safeguard this indirect voting system, where there is not even proportionality in the distribution of the votes of the electoral colleges.
How does the system work?
According to the law dating from 1845, the presidential elections of the North American country must be held the following Tuesday after the first Monday of November in leap years.
Citizens do not directly elect the candidate, since it is the 538 delegates or electors nominated by the parties who will have the power to elect the president of the United States. The sole premise of these delegates is to favor the popular vote by granting all of their votes to the candidate who has obtained the highest number of votes in the state. This premise only varies in Maine and Nebraska where the college votes are distributed proportionally, according to the percentage of votes obtained by the competitors.
The number of delegates per state is distributed according to the last population census, which gives greater advantages to states with the highest number of inhabitants, dismantling the main argument for the application of this indirect voting system, which was to prevent states from The bigger ones decide for the smaller ones.
Finally, for the candidate to be victorious, he must be favored with the vote of a minimum of 270 delegates. In the event of a tie, it will be the House of Representatives that will decide who is the President.
Trump plays implosion
To strengthen his criticism of voting by mail, the magnate decided to add another aspect that demonstrates the vulnerability of the system, by asking North Carolina voters to vote twice.
"Send (your mail-in ballot) early and then go and vote (in person). You can't let them take your vote away, these people are playing dirty politics," said Trump, who is not the first time he has appealed to the fraud discourse, as he demonstrated in 2017, where despite having won the elections in the electoral colleges, he pointed out that there were between three and five million illegal votes that favored Clinton's victory in the popular vote.
A Bush triumph
In addition to this strategy of discrediting the electoral system, Trump has decided to add the placement of pieces in the Supreme Court of Justice, which would be the body that could intervene in case the process becomes "murky" or the institutional stability of the North American nation is put at risk.
By 2017, after managing to delay the election of the replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia until after the presidential elections in November 2016, Trump nominated conservative Neil Gorsuch to occupy the Supreme Court, thereby maintaining the conservative majority composition that in 2000 , handed the victory in Florida to George Bush.
In 2020, the death of progressive judge Amy Coney Barrett opened the opportunity for Trump to nominate a new candidate, which he decided not to miss despite the request of the late pre-Congress judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to postpone the election of his replacement until after the presidential elections.
If Trump's proposal is approved by conservative judge Amy Coney, the voting ratio in this court would be six conservatives and three "progressives," which would favor the tycoon if the election had to be decided in this instance, as already occurred in 2000 with a 5-4 vote in favor of the Republican Bush.
Denied the handover of power
"If they do stop that mail-in ballots, there will be a very peaceful transfer, well, there won't be a transfer, there will be a continuation," Trump said when asked if he would be willing to accept defeat.
All these defamatory tactics against the american electoral system open the door so that on November 3, in the face of a possible defeat or a very closed margin, Trump will argue against these weaknesses to denounce fraud, which would allow him to go to the highest court to appeal the results, as revealed on September 23 when he said: "I think this will end in the Supreme Court and I think it is very important that we have nine judges."
