AND SO IT BEGINS…!
What happens if the president doesn't accept the election results?
President Trump has been asked more than once whether he would accept the results of November's election. He won't say. What he has done is repeatedly claim the anticipated surge in mail-in ballots will "rig" the voting process.
At issue is the peaceful transfer of power from an outgoing president to his successor — no matter how bitter the campaign. It's a transition mandated by the 20th Amendment and a critical American tradition.
"I have to see," Mr. Trump said when asked by Fox News' Chris Wallace last Sunday whether he would accept the results. "No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no, and I didn't last time either." During a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump responded to a similar question from Wallace by saying, "I'll keep you in suspense."
"It is not up to President Trump, and the country does not have to satisfy him that he has lost," says Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University and a CBS News legal analyst."The Secret Service on Inauguration Day is under the direction of the new president. Upon the oath of office taken by his successor, President Trump becomes a guest in the White House. If he remains, he becomes an unwelcome guest. If he refuses to leave, he becomes an arrested guest."
However, Turley says, the president (and any presidential campaign) can challenge the result in a given state, though there are rigid time constraints. Requests for recounts are permitted in 43 states-
According to the Federal Election Commission, states have until December 8 to report results.
Such certification, absent any court orders, serves as the official acceptance of the election. This process is described by the 12th Amendment: "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted."
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Mr. Trump has already raised questions…
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Heading into the fall, the Trump campaign has criticized actions by states to expand absentee voting …
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"We don't know what kind of shenanigans Democrats will try leading up to November. If someone had asked George W. Bush and Al Gore this same question in 2000, would they have been able to foresee the drawn out fight over Florida?" Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement to CBS News.
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There is some concern among election experts about the impact of the president's rhetoric. Given the political divide on mail-in voting and Mr. Trump's previous comments, he could try to disparage absentee ballots if they don't match up with the results of the in-person votes.
"The worst case scenario is that there is confusion or it is disputed on January 6… Edward Foley, a constitutional law professor at The Ohio State University.
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Foley fears something similar in 2020: Election officials in a battleground state certify the final count, including vote by mail ballots, and declare Candidate X the winner for that state. But candidate Y could claim the popular vote was flawed because of suspicious absentee ballots, and convince the state legislature to appoint the state's electors directly under Article II of the Constitution. Thus, there would be competing results from the same state. The statute conceived after the 1876 election is ambiguous as to what comes next, Foley says, and would require congressional fixes.
There is no constitutional mandate that the electors vote for the candidate who won the most votes in their states. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that states have the right to require their electors to vote for whoever wins their state. But only 32 states have such a requirement. Battleground states of Pennsylvania and Georgia, for example, don't require it.
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There is also no legal requirement that a candidate verbally concede, but such acknowledgments are often done in service to unite the nation after a political campaign and to assist with the peaceful transition of power.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-happens-if-the-president-doesnt-accept-the-election-results/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=94898492