Could a second wave of coronavirus delay the 2020 election? Yahoo News Explains

Earlier this month, former Vice President Joe Biden speculated that President Trump could use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to delay the November presidential election. And just this week, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner made headlines when he refused to say whether the election will be held on Nov. 3. Could a second wave of the coronavirus actually delay voting? Yahoo News Senior Editor Will Rahn explains the unlikely scenario that could lead to a postponed election.

Video transcript

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WILL RAHN: You may have heard some discussion lately about whether President Trump could use the coronavirus as an excuse to delay this November's election.

- Former Vice President Joe Biden raising an ominous possibility, that President Trump could seek to postpone November's general election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

WILL RAHN: And just this week, Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner made headlines when he refused to say whether the election will be held on November 3.

- Is there any scenario, including a second outbreak in the fall, where the election is moved past November 3?

JARED KUSHNER: That's too far in the future to tell. Nothing that I'm aware of now. But again, our focus right now is just on getting--

- Well, will you commit that the elections will happen on November 3?

JARED KUSHNER: It's not my decision to make. So I'm not sure I can commit one way or the other.

WILL RAHN: Kushner caught a lot of flak for those comments. And he later said he wasn't aware of any discussions about delaying the election. But he's correct that it's not his decision to make. Article II of the Constitution stipulates that it's up to Congress to choose what day the election is held. Since 1845, election day has been held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which this year means November 3.

But if the House, which is controlled by the Democratic party, and the Senate, which is controlled by the GOP, agreed that election day should be postponed, they have some power to do that. Individual states, in theory at least, could also delay when they hold the election via emergency powers afforded to governors. But Congress and the states cannot delay the election indefinitely.

The 20th Amendment stipulates that the president's term ends at noon on January 20th. So one way or another, someone will take office that day. This is all to say that the president cannot delay the election on his own.

In 2004, the Congressional Research Service said that the executive branch does not currently have authority to set or change the times of elections, a power reserved for Congress under the Constitution. The report does note that Congress could delegates such authority to the executive branch. But seeing as it's almost impossible to imagine the House giving Trump that kind of power, it's safe to say that the executive branch won't be rescheduling this year's election.

Trump himself seemed to acknowledge this fact last month when he said that the election would go ahead as planned on November 3. But as Yahoo News's Jon Ward has reported, the coronavirus epidemic could lead to a dramatic increase in mail-in balloting. And that means it could take a week or more to count all the votes and figure out who the president will be come January. That may allow Trump, a fierce critic of voting by mail, to try and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, which, in turn, could provoke a unique constitutional crisis.

DONALD TRUMP: The mail ballots, they cheat, OK? People cheat. Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they're cheaters.

WILL RAHN: But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.