The outcomes of the 2020 presidential election won’t be the top of the world, BYU political science professor Richard Davis advised college students throughout a Nov. four panel on the pending election outcomes.

“The republic doesn’t crumble. It could sometime, but it surely’s not going to be due to this election,” Davis mentioned. “The underside line right here is that there will likely be one other day. The solar will come up, after let’s say Donald Trump turns into the president once more.”

“You actually are a ray of sunshine,” BYU political science professor Kelly Patterson interrupted, laughing.

Patterson and Davis, together with BYU political science professor and director of civic engagement Quin Monson, answered questions in regards to the forthcoming election outcomes and what they’ll imply for the state of American authorities as a part of the “Challenges to Democracy” lecture collection hosted by the David M. Kennedy Heart for Worldwide Research.

Monson agreed that college students ought to stay optimistic about election outcomes. He inspired college students to “take the lengthy view” and search for productive methods to make a distinction in native politics. “You’ll be able to have extra of an influence extra shortly and distract your self from no matter insanity is occurring on the nationwide stage you can’t management very a lot by turning your consideration to the native stage.”

Monson, Patterson and Davis every centered on completely different challenges to democracy throughout their opening remarks within the panel. Monson mentioned President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud throughout his speech on election night time may doubtlessly undermine the integrity of American elections.

“Should you’re going to make claims about malfeasance in elections or fraud in a roundabout way, you want some proof. And he hasn’t produced any,” Monson mentioned. In an interview previous to the panel he mentioned it might be troublesome to hide widespread voter fraud, and within the case of some inaccuracy, it will likely be vital to simply accept the end result, transfer on and and attempt to enhance voting for the subsequent election relatively than making an attempt to return and alter the outcomes.

Patterson mentioned a lot of the strain surrounding the election could be traced to the electoral faculty, whether or not it’s needed, and whether or not or not it’s functioning the way in which the framers of the Structure meant it to operate. He additionally raised the difficulty of funding with elections, stating that usually county clerks are overburdened.

“If we actually desire a political system that tells itself that it’s democratic and accountable to the folks that we have now to have actually good procedures in place to ensure that that occurs. And as a nation we haven’t figured that out but.” Patterson mentioned attainable inefficiencies in Utah voting is probably not as seen as a result of Utah is dominated by Republican voters and the outcomes aren’t normally shut.

Davis mentioned the presidential race is proof of how divided America has develop into politically. “This may very well be the closest political election since 1876. It may very well be that the hole that separates the candidates is 2 electoral votes,” he mentioned. Davis attributed the nationwide division between Republicans and Democrats to the 2 narratives being introduced by the information media.

“It isn’t simply associated to this election. It’s associated to a development that has been occurring for a while, that social gathering has develop into the way in which which individuals determine methods to vote but additionally methods to see the world,” Davis mentioned.

Anessa Pennington, a BYU journalism senior, has been a instructing assistant for the “Challenges to Democracy” lecture collection (IAS 301R) for a number of semesters and mentioned the collection is one in all her favorites thus far.

“I’m fairly liberal. Generally I don’t actually really feel like I see plenty of educational views on the proper, however I really feel like on this lecture collection there’s been a wide selection of individuals on political spectrums,” she mentioned. “It’s so related and so what we’d like proper now.”

College students can hear extra lectures within the “Challenges to Democracy” collection Wednesdays at midday. They will discover previous lectures within the Kennedy Heart lecture archive.