Donald Trump has intensified his baseless accusations that Democrats are plotting to “cheat” or “steal” the election, raising fears that the former president is setting the stage for an attempt to overturn the result if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.

But any attempt to derail the electoral process would this time face a whole series of new safeguards, legal experts say, making it unlikely that such an attempt would succeed. The new protections include: an election law passed by Congress following the January 6 insurrection, recent court decisionsmore vigilance from state election officials and more aggressive law enforcement by agencies determined to avoid a repeat of the violent scenes that occurred at the US Capitol four years ago.

“It’s very difficult this time,” said law professor Richard Hasen, an elections expert at UCLA.

In 2020, Trump issued similar warnings before the vote. When he lost to Joe Biden, he pressured officials in key states to overturn the result, filed a series of fraud lawsuits, and demanded that his vice president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify the result.

But state officials resisted his pressure, judges rejected his team’s lawsuits, and Pence defied Trump and fulfilled his constitutional duty to uphold the vote’s result.

Unlike in 2020, Trump is no longer president and does not have executive power. And the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Actpassed in 2022, tightened the process for casting and counting electoral votes, gave federal courts a clear role to quickly resolve disputes and made it harder for lawmakers to raise frivolous objections.

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Some attempts by pro-Trump groups to change how votes are counted and certified have already failed, with judges rejecting the measures as illegal and unconstitutional. Last week, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected an attempt by pro-Trump Republicans to introduce new voting laws in the state, including one that would have required hand counting of ballots and others that would have delayed the certification process.

If Trump sought to challenge the election results, he would have two potential paths to try to overturn the results, and both paths are “long-term plans,” said Hasen, director of the Saving Democracy Project at the faculty in Law from UCLA.

The first would be to attempt to delay the certification of results in certain counties or states by alleging irregularities or making other allegations. Dozens of state and local election officials are now stationed in swing states that openly rejected the 2020 results, raising the possibility that they will refuse to certify the vote count or cause other delays.

But such efforts would most likely fail, legal experts say. Secretaries of state and attorneys general in key states like Pennsylvania and Arizona have pledged to sue local governments if they try to delay the process.

“There may still be some people trying to engage in these shenanigans,” said Gowri Ramachandran of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. “But I think ultimately, a combination of state election officials, the attorneys general, who often represent them in court, and the courts themselves, are going to tell people to just do their job and certify the correct results.”

Last month, top officials from three key states – Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin – have said they are prepared to sue local government authorities if they refuse to certify the results.

“We would immediately take them to court to force them to certify, and we are confident – because of the clarity of Pennsylvania’s election law – that the courts would quickly require counties to certify their election results,” the secretary said. State of Pennsylvania. » said Al Schmidt.

The other path for Trump would be to attempt to overturn the results in the House and Senate. First, he would need Republicans to take control of both chambers and declare the Electoral Count Reform Act unconstitutional. In this scenario, Team Trump would attempt to persuade Republican-controlled state legislatures to send out competing voter slates, even though that is the legal role of governors.

This approach would require securing electoral victories in both houses of Congress and in state legislatures like Pennsylvania or Michigan. Currently, control of the Pennsylvania Legislature is split between the two parties, and Democrats govern the Michigan Legislature.

The key figure in this scenario would be the Speaker of the House, who could potentially prevent any candidate from gaining an Electoral College majority. This would force a contingent election in the House to choose the next president, with each state delegation having only one vote. Republicans maintain an advantage and control more state delegations.

If all of these political elements fell into place, organizers would be betting that the Supreme Court would rule in their favor and uphold their defiance of federal election law.

Matthew Sanderson, an elections lawyer based in Washington, D.C., said he thinks it is extremely unlikely that this scenario will play out to completion.

“Even if the Republicans get a slim majority in the new Congress that sits on January 3,” he said by email, “I find it incredibly difficult to believe that a large number of Republican senators and House members who recently co-sponsored and voted in the election It would only take a few days for the Count Reform Act to pass, before the joint session on January 6, a resolution calling it “unconstitutional.”

But even if that happened, Sanderson said, Congress can’t simply declare its past laws “unconstitutional.”

“There is no mechanism to do this,” he said. “Congress can only repeal its previous laws, and a joint resolution of Congress would repeal nothing. Based on this, I think even a conservative Supreme Court would say that the Electoral Count Act (as reformed) would govern the process.

Armed groups and electoral chaos

Despite obstacles to a legal path to overturning the election results, Trump’s volatile rhetoric has raised concerns among federal, state and local officials about a possible prolonged post-Election Day crisis and possible political violence in polling places or in state capitals.

Trump’s remarks risk inflaming armed groups that responded to his rhetoric four years ago by storming the Capitol and attacking police officers, according to former law enforcement officials and researchers who follow these groups.

While the election is expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin, it may take days or even weeks for a clear winner to be declared. And officials fear a window of uncertainty could give armed groups an opportunity to foment chaos or violence.

Anti-government militias and other like-minded groups are organizing and recruiting on social media at a scale and pace not seen since the events leading up to January 6, 2021, according to Frank Figliuzzi, former deputy director of counterintelligence at the FBI. , who contributes to national security for NBC News.

Keen to avoid a repeat of the Jan. 6 event, the FBI, state election officials and local law enforcement are taking elaborate precautions to ensure votes are counted and repel any attempts to derail the process. Given the increased security risk, some state officials planned to abandon high-profile public ceremonies to certify election results in state capitals.

Election officials across the country also enhanced security at polling places, including by strengthening the police presence and distributing bulletproof vests to election workers. In Maricopa County, Arizona, a tabulation center will have snipers on the roofdrones flying over the area, security cameras and searchlights to help police monitor the area, officials told NBC News.

The Department of Homeland Security called the Jan. 6 session of Congress, in which lawmakers certify the electoral vote for president, a “special national security event.” This puts it on the same level of security as major events such as the Super Bowl or the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

“Federal authorities are well prepared for an iconic attack in Washington,” Figliuzzi said.

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Unlike the last presidential election, the risk of violence is likely to be higher in a state capitol or county than in Washington, he said.

“I see the easy targets are in danger,” he said. “I see local, departmental and state entities under threat. This is where the action is and, frankly, it might be the weakest link.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to spread lies that Democrats intend to change the outcome of the election.

That gamble didn’t pan out four years ago, and some of those who joined the effort — including Trump supporters who signed fake voter rolls for him — were prosecuted.

“People didn’t agree last time. State officials resisted. State legislators resisted,” said UCLA’s Hasen. “And of course, some of the people involved have been charged with crimes. This must therefore have a deterrent effect for certain people.

Given the legal and political obstacles facing any attempt to reject and overturn the election results, what is Trump’s best option to return to power? Win the election legally and legitimately, Hasen said.

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