Is Election 2020 the most unusual presidential election in history?

If nothing else, the election saga is certainly interesting. It has created great misery and hand-wringing across the political spectrum. 

Based on the projections of news outlets relying on state voting totals, former Vice President Joe Biden, D-Pa., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Cal., were declared the winners. That, however, does not make them the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect.

The process has not yet reached the stage where any candidates are officially declared to have won.

Every election has problems, like human error and fraud. The question always is, how much of an effect do the errors and fraud really have?

This election was doomed to be controversial from the beginning, with the potential for more problems than usual due to the fear of the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions it created. More people wanted to vote early or by absentee or mail-in ballot than usual to avoid the crowds at polling places. 

And then there were potential problems from the tens of millions of universal mail-in ballots sent out, many/most from states that were ill-prepared to handle that situation.

The dangers of mail-in voting are well known. We were warned about problems by such important voices as former President Jimmy Carter and The Carter Center, Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter, and The New York Times.

And now that the voting is done, there are claims that confirm those warnings: Lost ballots, ballots found in trash cans, more votes in some precincts than registered voters, vote count observers prevented from observing the process, among them.

The Constitution gives the sole power to establish election procedures to the state legislatures. Yet in several states these procedures were recently changed by judges, secretaries of state and others who do not have that authority. 

Since changes were made by unauthorized persons, how many ballots were counted that were received after the previous -- legal -- deadline, or under previous requirements for signatures and such? Those ballots are not valid!

There are many charges of mistakes and fraud being looked into. President Donald Trump’s lawyers have filed multiple lawsuits challenging various aspects of the election process in several states. 

This has greatly angered Trump’s enemies; lots of people are urging Trump to concede, severely chastising him for not having already done so. This, despite that what he is doing is both legal and not uncommon. In the 2000 race, for example, Democrat candidate Al Gore challenged things for more than a month; Trump has done so for only three weeks, as of today.

And, given the array of false charges and hoaxes Trump was tortured with for the last four years, starting when he first declared himself a candidate, perhaps he has good reason to hold off conceding until challenges are resolved. Note: his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, still has not acknowledged Trump won, and she advised candidate Biden not to concede “under any circumstances.”

Democrats felt confident that a blue wave was coming, expecting that they would win the presidency, expand their House majority and perhaps win control of the Senate.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Republicans increased their numbers in the House, flipping possibly a dozen seats from blue to red, and leaving the Democrats with a very slim majority. 

While the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate, Republicans may possibly retain their majority, depending upon the run-off elections for two Georgia seats.

Despite the losses in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., claimed victory, touting the popular vote tally showing House Democrats collected more votes than Republicans. Apparently, the number of votes for Democrats is more important than the number of Democrats that will be in the House.

Perhaps the most interesting, or the strangest, issue is the alleged massive fraud by voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems based in Canada. The Dominion machines are alleged to have actually thrown the election to Biden/Harris through manipulative software.

It is a complicated scenario that many people have discounted because of a lack of evidence having been revealed to support it. However, supporters say there is plenty of evidence, adding that evidence is critical and necessary for legal proceedings, but is not needed merely to assuage doubting reporters and Trump opponents. The Trump legal team cites dozens of sworn affidavits, filed under the threat of perjury, alleging vote fraud in some states.

Dominion has denied all charges, and its officials had agreed to testify before a Pennsylvania legislative committee. Then, Dominion strangely cancelled out the night before the hearing. 

These days computers are capable of doing fantastic things. But can they control the votes of tens of millions of voters in hundreds of different voting locations?

Georgia’s experience with Dominion computers used in the state’s primary raised questions and concerns over the company’s voting system. But Georgia stuck with them.

And the head of another computer voting system, Smartmatic, admitted in 2017 that his company’s computers and software created at least one million additional votes in the Venezuelan election.

Most view Trump’s efforts to prove he won as improbable. But with the vast array of problems and potential fraud, taking a few weeks to investigate them is not asking too much.