It could be a wild ride on election night and beyond

It’s a sign of the times that federal law enforcement and national security agencies last week felt compelled to put out an advisory warning the American pubic about “the potential threat posed by attempts to spread disinformation regarding the results of the 2020 elections.”

The gist of the alert seems like it would apply to President Donald Trump, even though he wasn’t the target.

“Foreign actors and cybercriminals could create new websites, change existing websites, and create or share corresponding social media content to spread false information in an attempt to discredit the electoral process and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions,” said the joint statement issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Intelligence agencies for some time have said Russia is again attempting to meddle in the presidential election, as it did on Trump’s behalf in 2016. Other hostile nations and shadowy organizations, possibly including some within the United States, may try to do so as well, according to authorities.

The FBI and cybersecurity agencies were focused on deceptive efforts beneath the surface seeking to raise doubts about the election. Trump has been forthright about his.

Just days after the alert was issued, the president made his latest declaration — again without any supporting evidence — that widespread use of mail ballots will result in massive election fraud on Nov. 3.

He went further this time and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should the vote go against him.

The agencies are particularly concerned that long-delayed vote counts due to a huge increase in mail ballots across the nation will create a void that could be filled with evil acts.

“Foreign actors and cybercriminals could exploit the time required to certify and announce elections’ results by disseminating disinformation that includes reports of voter suppression, cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure, voter or ballot fraud, and other problems intended to convince the public of the elections’ illegitimacy,” the FBI and

cybersecurity agency said.

While his methods may differ, Trump has sought to sow seeds of doubt about the security and validity of mail ballots. He raised the specter of an election rigged against him long before a vote had been cast. It would be a surprise for him not to continue to do so during post-election vote counts.

This comes in the context of national polls and surveys in some swing states that have former Vice President Joe Biden leading the incumbent.

Research has repeatedly shown that neither mail ballots nor in-person voting has been subject to widespread, systematic fraud. FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, emphasized that in testimony to Congress on Thursday.

He noted there there have been relatively small, isolated cases of ballot manipulation. The Justice Department last week said it was investigating nine discarded ballots cast by military service members in Pennsylvania, seven of which were said to be votes for Trump.

California and a handful of other states have relied heavily — in some cases exclusively — on mail ballots for years, and residents are accustomed to close races not being determined for days or weeks because of late-arriving ballots.

That’s not the case with other states, where absentee voting usually is restricted, but is being dramatically broadened this year because of safety concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. Voting by mail on a big scale and California-like delays in election tallies will be new experiences.

The federal alert, along with Trump’s relentless accusations of fraud, come on top of concern about whether the U.S. Postal Service will be up to the task of delivering all those mail ballots before deadlines. Over the summer, the president was clear that his opposition to USPS funding was linked to his desire to diminish voting by mail.

If that wasn’t enough to raise anxiety, poor votecounting performances led to confusion in some states during the primaries, while

hundreds of thousands of ballots went uncounted.

Trump’s end game with pre-emptive election-fraud claims would seem to be to remain in the White House no matter the election results. His refusal to say he would concede if the election doesn’t go his way points in that direction.

Some GOP officials have worried about mail voting being discouraged because a lot of Republicans regularly use mail ballots. In the past, Republicans and Democrats have been fairly even in using mail ballots.

But that appears to be changing in this election, according to a study conducted by UC San Diego, UC Riverside and the University of Southern California.

In the spring and summer of this year, researchers found “a significantly greater preference for mail, or absentee, ballots among Democrats than among Republicans,” according a release from UC San Diego.

Ballot requests nationwide for the November election show the trend is continuing.

“A serious partisan

divide has opened up on preferences for voting by mail and has grown from a gap to a gulf over the past several months,” said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego professor of political science and senior author of the study.

We’ll find out where all this ends up — eventually. Both Republicans and Democrats are gearing up for post-election lawsuits. Meanwhile, Barton Gellman, writing in The Atlantic, recently presented a jarring scenario regarding the Electoral College.

“We are accustomed to choosing electors by popular vote, but nothing in the Constitution says it has to be that way,” he said, citing Article II.

“According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority.

“With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask

state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.”

Maybe the election will be clean and quickly decisive — one way or the other — and, in retrospect, the notion of a constitutional crisis will have seemed far-fetched.

If not, batten down the hatches.

Tweet of the Week

Goes to Ron Nehring (@Ronnehring), former chairman of the California and San Diego GOP, who has a more sanguine outlook.

“The election is not rigged. There will be a smooth transition or continuation of power. Someone will sue somebody along the way. Very common. Happens all the time. We know how to do elections. Now, let’s get on with it.”