Preparations for the 2024 elections in the US: Empirical analyses on the general elections held in the United States in November, 2020

Abstract

The Hungarian public was reached by numerous pieces of news regarding the general elections of the United States that had been held in November, 2020 but few of these were concrete and even less – if any – reached the level of an empirically sound scientific inquiry. What became clear to the Hungarian viewer was that the heat of the debates significantly exceeded even the usual – already very high – level. The time that has passed since than allows certain objectivity and distinctness which is essential so that the prospective debates of the 2024 elections could be properly evaluated. The current work uses two empirical analyses to complete the mission of putting the 2024 elections into context.

The main approach of the domestic and of the international press was the question whether the elections were tempered with. This work does not intend to raise or answer this question but exposes certain details that are to re-emerge with certainty in November, 2024. This article summarizes the events and procedural steps the practical handling of which were not satisfactory, according to many, and the betterment of which were incomplete – even in the best case – during the past three years. The issues of management, registration, and control of mail-in ballots, using ballot-harvesters, additionally, the management of the connection between the signed envelopes and the ballots in them are all highly important details which might eventually decide the outcome of the next elections.