Six-Chart Sunday (#39) – The Nine Week Slog

6 Infographics from the week + 1 Video (Steven Brill on "The Death of Truth")

Two weeks until Election Day… but what if that’s just the start of a more challenging period?  Getting past Nov. 5 will reduce some uncertainty, but the intensity may pick up during the subsequent Nine Week Slog between Election Day & Congressional certification of the winner (1/6/25).  During this fraught window we’ll need to count the votes, conduct any recounts and certify results in state capitals potentially roiled by protests… all amidst partisan paranoia & allegations of malfeasance, intense litigation, a disinformation deluge accelerated by foreign adversaries, a very busy Lame Duck session of Congress & possibly concurrent, competing Presidential transition operations… without any broadly-trusted referees to make final decisions that all will accept. Buckle up.

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1. When Might We Know Who Won? The Associated Press called the 2020 election for Biden 4 days after Election Tuesday. AP called 2016 for Trump after only one day. Those calls held as states finished counting all ballots & certified results over the next several weeks. In 2024 a lot will depend on the margins in the key states and Electoral College… as we learned in 2000, when George W. Bush’s minuscule 0.01% lead in Florida led to an epic recount, landmark Supreme Court case & 46 days of uncertainty.

2. Litigation Tsunami Will Continue & Intensify. We’d previously suggested 2024 will be “the most heavily-litigated election in U.S. history.” This week Bloomberg put out a detailed analysis of “at least 165 lawsuits filed since 2023 across 37 states that challenge every facet of the U.S. presidential contest” including this fascinating chart:

3. Recounts Are Rare and They Rarely Reverse Outcomes. 99.5% of statewide races do not get recounted. Of the 0.5% that are recounted, 92% don’t reverse the initial outcome. So if Trump or Harris is leading by more than 0.1% after the initial count, the odds are overwhelming (99.957%) their lead will hold. (Great analysis by FairVote’s Deb Otis).

4. Beware the Disinformation Deluge. One of the biggest challenges during the Nine Week Slog will be the ubiquity of misleading & incendiary allegations from the “conspiracy industrial complex”… manufactured lies (often created by foreign adversaries) that are amplified by partisans on social media, reinforced by media angertainment and designed to divide Americans & undermine our faith in elections.

5. There Are No Trusted Referees. If the election is as close as we expect, we will need law enforcement to investigate irregularities, courts to make rulings & media to explain. But we’ve reached a point where all sides mistrust these key players: Republicans don’t trust the mainstream media, Democrats don’t trust Fox. Democrats mistrust the Supreme Court, Republicans the FBI. Large majorities of both parties don’t trust the government to do what is right all/most of the time.

6. Congress Has a Very Full Plate. It’s hard to imagine an uneventful Lame Duck session of Congress. Unfinished legislative business alone would keep lawmakers plenty occupied, but post-election politics & pre-2025 maneuvering should make for an intense and consequential nine weeks. Don’t discount the possibility that House & Senate outcomes hang in the balance of too-close-to-call races, putting nerves that much more on edge as we face the possibility of a Triple Flip.

VIDEO

Steven Brill is an American lawyer, journalist, and entrepreneur who founded monthly magazine The American Lawyer, cable channel Court TV & start-up NewsGuard. We discuss his ongoing efforts to counter disinformation and great book about his work, The Death of Truth.