An underestimated factor in 2024 is that, while former President Donald Trump and his closest allies have learned from their failed 2020 coup attempt, everyone else learned, too.
On the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, I wrote out ways to protect American democracy in anticipation of another attempt in 2024. I’m pleased to say most of them happened.
Voters around the country rejected the “election denier” conspiracy theorists who ran for election administration positions. Congress reformed the Electoral Count Act, addressing loopholes Trump and congressional Republicans tried to exploit on Jan. 6. Big defamation payments for Dominion voting systems, as well as Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, give right-wing media a financial disincentive against pushing blatant lies.
Voters around the country rejected the ‘election denier’ conspiracy theorists who ran for election administration positions.
The legal system didn’t prevent Trump from getting this chance to put himself above the law, but the Justice Department did successfully prosecute hundreds of Jan. 6 attackers. Some of the most dangerous, such as militia members convicted of seditious conspiracy, are in prison. They can’t attack this time, and they offer an example for others: Trump can pardon insurrectionists if he becomes president, but you’re in trouble if he doesn’t.
The Republican Party has purged officials who won’t at least go along with Trump’s “big lie” and primed its supporters to deny election results, hammering lies about fraud. And this time they’ll have Elon Musk’s X pumping out conspiracy theories and trying to stoke political violence, as he recently did in the U.K.
In the event Trump loses, some degree of violence is likely as Trump and MAGA media whip their followers into a frenzy, but law enforcement will be more prepared. And he isn’t president, so he probably can’t summon a crowd to the National Mall in Washington and facilitate violence by ordering metal detectors removed.
There are bigger concerns at the state level. Some MAGA election administration officials will reject votes they don’t like or otherwise try to manipulate the process. We could see another fake electors scheme or state legislatures’ claiming they can overrule their voters.
But 2020 fake electors failed and got indicted, with the first conviction coming this August. To succeed this time, they’d need their states’ governors and a majority in Congress, both of which are unlikely. Even this Trump-authoritarianism-sympathetic Supreme Court rejected claims of state legislative supremacy.
A more vulnerable point is vote counting, especially in swing states where it could take days. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin can’t start processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, and Republican-led state legislatures rejected requests for reform. Trump could try to exploit any delays, declaring victory based on partial counts.
But 2020 was a better environment for that scam. Mail-in ballots had a heavy Democratic lean because Democrats took Covid more seriously than Republicans, and Trump was lying about mail-ins as a pretext to challenge the vote. This year, Republicans are encouraging early and mail-in voting. And whatever happens, an army of lawyers is ready to fight it out in court.
The biggest risk is if the election comes down to a single state, which limits the changes Trump would need, increasing incentives to attempt disruption. There’s a risk of violent demonstrations at vote-counting centers. But areas that experienced threatening crowds last time are more prepared. For example, Maricopa County — which includes Phoenix and over half of Arizona’s population — will protect counting centers with drone surveillance and police snipers. “Election workers,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “have gone through active-shooter drills and learned to barricade themselves or wield fire hoses to repel armed mobs.” Other swing states should increase security at vote-counting centers, if they haven’t already. Especially in populous areas that will take longer to count, such as in and around Philadelphia. The biggest risk is if the election comes down to a single state, which limits the changes Trump would need, increasing incentives to attempt disruption. But it would draw immense national attention from all sides, with lawyers, political operatives, protesters and media descending on the state. Election administration is diffuse and multilayered, and a lot is on camera. More judges and election officials want to uphold the law than overthrow it. We may not know the winner on Election Night, but we’ll almost certainly get an accurate count and a certified winner in time. Trump’s lying about election results and trying to overthrow democracy with the backing of the institutional Republican Party is the positive scenario. That would sound shockingly bad to an American in 2015, but in 2024 it’s much better than the alternative. If he wins, all bets are off. But if he loses, we can take some solace in that it’ll be harder for him and his team to try to steal the election this time around.
Nicholas Grossman
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of "Drones and Terrorism." 
