How Supreme Court could decide whether Trump or Biden goes to the White House

A Supreme Court showdown could decide if Donald Trump wins a second White House term if, once all the votes are counted, he has lost to Joe Biden.

The President has vowed to unleash a legal battle, claiming that the election is being stolen by electoral fraud after the huge numbers of postal votes cast.

Of course, if Mr Trump wins the election, he may change his tune.

But the final result is certainly hours, if not days away — possibly weeks if it turns into a legal fight.

In the meantime, America will be in limbo, with the threat of social unrest and jitters on the financial markets.  

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are among the battleground states on a knife-edge and while Mr Trump is ahead so far, this could be reversed once postal votes are counted as significantly more Democrats tend to use this method of casting their ballot.

Mr Trump will almost certainly seek to overturn decisions which allowed postal votes sent, but not received, before election day to be counted. He is likely to seek to challenge state legal rulings allowing such votes in the Supreme Court. His appointment of Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court justice just days before the election, creating a 6-3 conservative majority, could prove to be a decisive move if the result ends up being thrashed out there.

There is precedent for legal action. In 2000, Republican George W Bush beat Democrat Al Gore by just 537 votes in Florida after the high court halted a recount to become President in the “hanging chads” saga.

But even if Mr Trump loses in the courts, he will not go soon, and probably not quietly. Unlike Britain, the election winner does not take over swiftly. The President remains in the White House until late January. The next President will be inaugurated on January 20.

If neither candidate succeeds in gaining a majority of electoral college votes, it would trigger a “contingent election” under the 12th Amendment. That means the House of Representatives chooses the next President, while the Senate selects the Vice President.

Each state delegation in the House gets a single vote. As of now, Republicans control 26 of the 50 state delegations, while Democrats have 22; one is split evenly and another has seven Democrats, six Republicans and a Libertarian.