Will the U.S. have a free and fair presidential election in 2028?
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Political supporters of both 2024 party frontrunners Donald Trump and Joe Biden have claimed the other candidate is undemocratic in one way or another. Many have said the outcome of the 2024 election will determine the fate of American democracy. I decided to make this question to put this to the test: How likely do we actually think the end of democracy will occur in the next four years?

I understand this is an extremely contentious topic so I want to be specific about criteria. This question will only resolve YES if the following conditions are met:

  1. The election has to happen.

  2. There will be no incidents of manipulation of ballots by public or private actors which has the capacity to change the result of the election. Examples of this include counting ballots fraudulently, failing to count ballots, or creating new ballots.

  3. There will be no incidents of illegitimate persuasion by public or private actors in regards to voting which has the capacity to change the result of the election. This includes things like physical intimidation, bribery or blackmail.

  4. There will be no incidents of state electors voting in a manner incongruent with the popular vote of their state which has the capacity to change the result of the election.

  5. The winner of the presidential election will be allowed to take office in a peaceful transfer of power.

Because many of these criteria will take time to determine, I'm setting this question to resolve a year after election day on 2028

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I'm sure a nonzero number of people will vote twice, eg by filling out someone else's absentee ballot. And a fraction of them will be convicted an electoral crime. How many of these cases would there need to be to resolve NO?

@Jwags It needs to have the capacity to change the results of the election. For example, ten thousand illegitimate votes in a state like Missouri probably wouldn't count, but ten thousand illegitimate votes in a swing state might if the margins were close enough.

Would you have resolved this market "yes" in 2020? (i.e. if there's a serious attempt to use unlawful and/or violent means to overturn the results by one of the candidates, but that attempt fails to change the result of the election, how does this question resolve?)

@ColinAitkena211 That's a really good question and something I had to think about. Trump stated before the 2020 election that he would not commit to a peaceful transition of power. I think this statement of intent, his attempts to smear the election as illegitimate before and after the election, and his actions on jan 6 would have forced me to resolve "no" because it goes against the fifth criteria.

How would you place an ignoring of the 22nd amendment when it comes to candidacy?

Subsidized and boosted. Hard to imagine a more important question. I would encourage you to make conditional variants.

@Radicalia asking the same question about China is 4x more important, based on population alone.

@BrunoParga I don’t think there’s nearly as much variance there

Is a two-party system "free and fair"? Is the electoral college?

I think these questions shouldn't be begged.

@BrunoParga I underatand this issue is contentious, but I'm still going to resolve based on the criteria given. I guess this quesiton is more accurately phrased as "Will I consider the 2028 presidential election to be fair and free based on a given set of criteria".

@BryceBowemd39 I hear you, and of course it is your market. I think phrasing it as "will the election happen as usual" is a better description of the resolution criteria without begging the question.

#4 has exceptions even under normal conditions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Summary

The EC is weird

Sorry about the last question the app glitched