A nest of fire ants with no sense of direction

Since more or less the beginning, the US presidential election is every four years on the first Monday of November. Maybe not this year. 

As the old expression goes, "no prizes for guessing." As with many or most events and systems, Covid-19 has played a complicating factor. That is already effecting the whole process, which has taken a different from to the usual political theatre in the United States. 

While Donald Trump is aiming for a second term, he has been hinting (not always with subtlety) that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud. The only memorable occasion on which lack of availability for a mail-in vote resulted in the assassinations of Hyman Roth in The Godfather. As surreal as a real-life recreation of that would be, there is a vague possibility of some kind of fraud. Donald Trump came to severely dislike the term "meddling" because it was part of the phrase "Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election." 

Delaying the election it by even a single day would require negotiating a maze of law and procedure. Going even further would be the bureaucratic equivalent of A Bridge Too Far. If there has been no election by the end of the term in January 2021, the vice-president would become president, although that would only last for one day. Next would be the Speaker of the House who is currently Democrat Nancy Pelosi. That would not happen because her two year term as speaker is finishing in December. Cue a massive "phew!" from most Republicans. 

That would apparently mean that 86-year-old Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. He would even break Trump's record of the oldest President in US history, who was 70 on inauguration day. As Senator Grassley is Republican, that could only take place if they still control the Senate. One third of its seats are due to be empty because of their own term expirations. 

Emergency powers could be used while employing extreme improvisation. Individual states could even contest the election, or even use the archaic system of "electors" to determine who won. Electors were last heard of in Florida during the farce of the 2000 election of George W Bush V Al Gore. While that could lead to mass protests, social distancing rules would prevent them. If feelings were that strong, trying to prevent protests would cause rioting and the National Guard being called up. That would lead to the Chief bellowing at the top of his lungs, "protect those ballot boxes!" 

For slightly more peaceful measures, there are the courts which at state level have heard cases regarding complaints that the state governor didn't have the legal power to postpone a vote or extend the absentee voting deadline. In terms of established practice in terms of postal / mail-in voting the USA resembles a surreal jigsaw puzzle. Decentralized by its inherent nature, election in 5 states vote entirely by mail. Other states provide a postal ballot to anyone who requests it. Some states require voters to prove why they can't vote in-person in order to justify voting by mail. 

While there have been demands to make absentee voting more accessible, some senior political leaders are proving to be as stubborn as a mule, with the governor of Missouri suggesting that only using fear of contracting Corona virus was not a reason to quality for an absentee ballot. Other states have similar policies. 

The congress and senate could introduce new laws to mandate a minimum level of mail-in voting, but the chances of a majority in either the house or senate are extremely unlikely. By their nature, both have a surreal and metaphorical resemblance to a low-class wrestling match. 

Meanwhile, some option polls show that just over half of all Americans are uncomfortable voting in public during a health crisis. While opinion polls used to provoke past presidents and certainly Donald Trump into rolling their eyes in disdain. 

US politics had already been somewhat messy before the virus. Covid-19 has accentuated the flaws that were already in place in terms of the political system and government. Once they were combined, it has become an unfortunately suitable recipe to make US society even more disjointed and liable to develop into a mass of slow-motion panic.