The last hours of every American election campaign are characterised by breathless campaign appearances, strong imagery and sharp-tongued appeals to motivate a base, while bringing independents in from the sidelines. The frenetic pace distracts from critical, structural elements to watch as the hours tick down toward the official determination of the result.

Beyond the campaign rhetoric, here are five structural issues to watch on, around and beyond election day:

1. “Breadcrumbing” election interference

In 2020, the Trump campaign built the lie of a stolen election and massive electoral fraud around a set of more than 60 often hastily assembled lawsuits. Many of these cases were struck down on the basis that there was little or no legal precedent for vote tampering, foreign citizen voting, ballot stuffing, voting machine interference and a series of other issues that were alleged at the time. In the run-up to this election, the Trump campaign has laid a trail of so-called breadcrumbs by continuously noting it will only accept results if it is a “fair, legal and good election” and accusing the opposing side of cheating prior to election day.

By filing 115 separate lawsuits ahead of this election, there is a concerted effort in place to create legal precedence that might be needed to make allegations of electoral interference stick during and after. It is a stalling tactic that might work – at least while cases move through judicial proceedings – to hold up final certification of the vote.

Florida, Texas and Ohio, for example, are suing the Department of Homeland Security to review hundreds of thousands of potential non-citizen voters Texas alone would like 450,000 voters to be reviewed by 5 November in a last-minute lawsuit.

Experts call these lawsuits “zombies,” as there is no evidence for the veracity of these claims. For example, in more than 8.2. million voters in Georgia this year, only 20 of these voters were non-citizens. These are primarily intended to set precedence marker lawsuits that can be referred to after the election, delay certification and force the federal government into a holding pattern.

Trump strategist Steven Miller has advised Republican states on this tactic, down to the language of the lawsuits’ filing.  An actual legal victory is secondary to creating enough distrust in the system and an official paper trail – legal breadcrumbs – to give potential lawsuits over voting and ballot integrity greater sway in courts, particularly ones now overseen by the historic number of judges President Trump appointed in his four years in office.

Additionally, crowdsourced “election integrity teams” have self-identified, following training by MAGA advisors. These teams are recording firsthand accounts, connecting this information using social media and reporting in to the Republican National Committee, which spearheaded these efforts in summer 2024. More than 60 percent of electoral officials feel their jobs – and lives – are less safe as a result of disinformation and other efforts to sow doubt over the integrity of the vote.

Generally, it is useful to note that the 2020 election was considered a historically safe, and many states have since updated their voting laws to assure even greater accountability. Thousands of jurisdictions across the country run elections across the 50 states in a bipartisan system that has neutral control levers. However, the spread of functional election processes across many jurisdictions can be a strength – or it can open opportunities for these systems to be weakened at the local root.

2. Active weakening of the credibility of the voting system

The US voting system, with the separation of electoral college and popular vote, has long been criticised. Local review boards have taken on these critiques in decisions to use different electoral procedures for local and state-wide elections, or to change the composition of a voting district away from partisan dynamics to greater reflect an area’s political diversity. But when used as a political tactic, several states critical to the 2024 elections have made changes to their electoral proceedings. These changes could further weaken trust in the vote, if they stay in place.

For months, voter rolls have been purged in the swing state of Arizona. In Virginia, during the so-called 90-day quiet period when voters are not to be disenfranchised, voting officials did just that. They purged 1,600 voters from their rolls, a case that made it to the Supreme Court just days ahead of the election. Virginia’s Republican judges allowed the purge through a temporary decision. A politicised battle over voting access is on, with changes to access to the franchise and its system occurring in an already-running election. Two recent decisions in Georgia, with 16 electoral college votes on the line, stand out – even if these attempts were ultimately struck down. The mere attempt of fundamental changes to voting procedure during a running national election is of concern.

Procedural changes to vote-processing stood out on the one hand for the capacity of election officials to be co-opted for party political purposes and on the other hand for the somewhat surprising capacity of politicized courts to reverse these decisions. Less than two weeks before voting started, the Republican-controlled Georgia State Election Board passed a rule on hand-counting ballots. In past elections, this has been proven to deliver high error counts, but at first blush, it seems to create greater accountability in local voting.

Another rule based on the suspicion of “undefined discrepancies” in the vote, would have allowed local election officials to refuse the certification of votes. This could potentially throw the outcome of the election into limbo, certainly into the courts, up to the Supreme Court. Here, Republican strategists behind these initiatives hope that Trump-appointed justices might secure a legal victory, invalidating certain results.

A Republican judge struck these two rule changes down, but the Trump team has appealed in an already-running election. These shifts are remarkable for the capacity of MAGA strategists to usurp formerly politically neutral election bodies, while placing citizen votes into legal limbo right when voting begins.

3. Election night disinformation

Foreign actor-steered dis- and misinformation, electronic interference (hacking) and social engineering, including through proven cases from Russia—see also here, Iran and China, which has made recent headlines for espionage and direct access to electoral candidates and US policy-makers—have all increased and accelerated. Domestic disinformation spreaders will likely continue to rely on low-cost/high-impact tactics, often powered by generative AI, to suppress voter participation on election day and in the hours after the poll close. Despite increasing awareness of its dangers and better training in active response measures, audio disinformation remains particularly hard to trace.

As a result, it has become the accelerated tool of choice, aside from electronically spread lies around ballot stuffing and slow counting, to indicate irregularities and misinformation aimed at sending swing state voters to false polling locations or discouraging them from voting at all. Ballot stuffing and slow counting, to indicate irregularities and misinformation aimed at sending swing state voters to false polling locations or discouraging them from voting at all.

Self-proclaimed free-speech activist Elon Musk has done as much to injure the concept, actively allowing hate-speech on X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk has cut the site’s election integrity unit, instead actively supporting a Trump candidature. This has even included creating a petition-framed workaround to entice voting registration and a commitment to Trump’s candidacy – while holding more than $15 billion in federal defence contracts, making the government dependent on his oligarchic power.

Aside from direct impact on turnout and actual election tallies in close counties and tight races, particularly in swing states, disinformation has caused physical harm and exacerbated political violence in a volatile political climate. Lies about FEMA, the US federal aid agency for domestic emergencies, seizing private property to dig for lithium, served as a call to action for armed interference. This forcing FEMA to temporarily halt aid services in Rutherford County, NC, when physical threats became a reality.

4. Active voter intimidation and political violence

One of the most visceral post-election threats is immediate political violence to destabilise the country. In the last week of October, a gunman who shot at a Democratic Party official in Arizona was found to have been preparing a “mass casualty event”. In March 2024, a representative PBS News Hour/NPR/Marist poll found that one in five Americans believe political violence could be justified to “get the country back on track.” Republicans surveyed were more likely than Democrats or Independents – and slightly more likely than the overall population – to say force may be necessary. Instead of serving as a disincentive, the assassination attempts on former President Trump have served as an additional rallying call. Statistically, one in three Americans own a gun.

Since the 6 January riots at the US capitol, which threatened hundreds in the building and claimed seven lives, the radicalised instigators, including the Proud Boys and other decentralised paramilitary organisations have been regrouping. Self-governing chapters in 40 states have been animated, in part, by direct descriptions from Trump advisers, that a “second American revolution,” is in the offing, bloodless only if militia groups do not meet active resistance.

The Global Project against Hate and Extremism has tracked rhetoric related to election denialism rising 317 percent during October 2024, including direct incitement on Telegram to justify an apparent “immediate civil war” and a call to “shoot to kill any illegal voters”. Such offensive threats, coupled with the proliferation of weapons on American streets, has prompted local law enforcement to step up polling protection, which civil rights groups view critically.

Strong police presence can seem akin to voter intimidation in certain places, where local police unions have endorsed former President Trump. Trump himself has expressed his desire to increase police immunity in active duty and threats to deploy law enforcement on American streets to suppress protest.

5. Delayed certification and final vote tallies

These elements may come together to create destabilising energy around the election precisely because the ultimate count will take time. Legal questioning and wrangling over certification processes in narrow races could warrant legitimate recounts. In addition – and as a normal part of the process – Congressional races in several key states, including States that traditionally break for the Democratic presidential candidate, will send mixed delegations to the House and Senate.

Toss-up races in New York and California are likely. House races in California are expected to come down to the wire and final results are unlikely to be available until days – or even weeks – after the election. In 2000, it took more than a month to recount Florida’s ballots, and, in 2020, it took more than four days to cement the final electoral count. Election calls are based largely on exit polls, centrally coordinated, and have rightly suffered tougher scrutiny since 2000.

Though early and mail voting is allowed in decisive swing state Pennsylvania, officials cannot start counting ballots until 7:00 am on election day and that process has already ended up in court. 2020 saw a neck-and-neck race for the state over four days, with President Biden ultimately declared the winner.

With drastically different visions for the future of the United States, razor-thin polling predictions, assassination attempts and candidate changes, 2024 is already a historic election. But how these five factors play out around the election itself will determine whether US democracy emerges resilient and strengthened from these tests – or suffers grievous injury from which there might be no rapid recovery.

About the author

Cathryn is a German-American political analyst and Senior Advisor in the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Sustainable Social Market Economies Programme with a focus on Transatlantic trade and security relations, economic resilience and industrial strategy, tech policy and digital diplomacy.

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