Talk:2020 United States presidential election

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Frequently asked questions

This section is here to provide answers to some questions that have been previously discussed on this talk page.

Note: This FAQ is only here to let people know that these points have previously been addressed, not to prevent any further discussion of these issues.

Q1: Why does the article call President Trump's statements about the integrity and legitimacy of the election "false"?

A1: Because reliable sources call his statements false. Though Trump often classifies these sources as "fake news", the consensus of other reliable non-news sources and Wikipedia editors is that they are reliable. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia reflects these sources, which may not align with any one individual's statements on the matter. (See also WP:TRUTH)

Q2: Why does(n't) this article use [this specific source]?

A2: As mentioned above, Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources say. A basic definition of a reliable sources is that they publish reputable, accurate articles along with fact-checking them. Some sources are repeatedly discussed on if they are actually reliable with some sources being generally unreliable and should be avoided when possible or even deprecated which restricts their use to only articles describing themselves.

Q3: Why is Kanye West/Jo Jorgensen/Howie Hawkins/[other third party candidate] not included in the infobox at the top of this article?

A3: A consensus was reached in this discussion among Wikipedia editors to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox. Changes to this decision must also reflect consensus.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

More information Article milestones, Date ...

2020 United States presidential election was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 2, 2006	Articles for deletion	Deleted
October 30, 2015	Articles for deletion	Kept
November 1, 2015	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 1, 2017	Articles for deletion	Kept
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 22, 2015. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that potential candidates in the United States presidential election of 2020* include Tom Cotton, Hillary Clinton, and Kanye West?*
A news item involving this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on November 7, 2020.
Current status: Former good article nominee

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Elections and Referendums

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums

Politics: American High‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by American politics task force (assessed as Top-importance).

United States: Presidential elections / Government / History Mid‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. presidential elections (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. Government (assessed as High-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject U.S. history (assessed as Low-importance).

Presidents of the United States: Donald Trump Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Presidents of the United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Presidents of the United States on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Presidents of the United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject Presidents of the United StatesTemplate:WikiProject Presidents of the United StatesPresidents of the United States
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Donald Trump task force.

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Noam Cohen (October 26, 2020). "Wikipedia's Plan to Resist Election Day Misinformation". Wired.
Sara Morrison (November 2, 2020). "How Wikipedia is preparing for Election Day". Vox.

More information Section name, Byte count ...

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This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2020 and 2024.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 13 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Editors have reached a consensus about the following issues:

Applicable consensuses: Consensuses reached for the 2012 and 2016 elections apply for the 2020 election as well, unless these consensuses are reversed.
Infobox inclusion criteria, post-election (discussion): Only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox.
When to update the popular vote (discussion).: The popular vote tally and percentage should be updated twelve hours after polls close, and then every ~~six~~ three hours thereafter.
Images that should be used

Joe Biden (discussion)

Pre-election presentation of candidates

Infobox inclusion criteria (discussion)

The political parties that earned at least one electoral vote in the previous election are to, by default, be included in the infobox of the article about the next election. This means that, as of right now, only the Republican and Democratic parties are to be included in the infobox.

Third parties are only to be included in the infobox prior to the election if they are polling, on average, over 5% (RfC).

Infobox inclusion criteria for state subpages (discussion)

Include candidates in the infoboxes of state subpages who are polling at an average of at least 5% in a state or are the nominees of parties whose candidates received 5% in a state in the last election.

Order of candidates in the infobox

Parties that got at least one electoral vote in the 2016 election will be the first to appear in the infobox and will be ordered by how many electoral votes they got in 2016. Since the Republican Party got 306 electoral votes and the Democratic Party got 232, the Republican Party will be the first to appear in the infobox and the Democratic Party will be the second.

Some political parties that may in the future be qualified to appear in the infobox did not get any electoral votes in 2016. They will be ordered by the total amount of electoral votes in the states that have ballot access. Write-in access counts too.

If two or more parties have access to the same amount of electoral votes, they will be sorted by how many popular votes they got in 2016. If one of the parties did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be be ordered after the parties (with the access to the same amount of electoral votes) that did. If two or more parties both have access to the same amount of electoral votes and did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be sorted alphabetically by the candidates' names.

Criteria for a potential candidate to be included in the article

The "Publicly expressed interest" section requires only one source from the last six months where the individual is quoted as being interested in running in 2020. Social media posts do not count as public expressions of interest.

The "Potential candidates" section requires at least two sources speculating that an individual may run or where an individual talks about the 2020 election from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). The sources must not be a list of several potential candidates nor a persuasive article about why a candidate should run.

The "Declined candidates" section requires at least two sources from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). One source must be speculative in the same vein as the "Potential candidates" section, while the second must be a quoted denial from the individual in question.

Section sizes

Section size for 2020 United States presidential election (79 sections)
Section name	Byte count		Prose size (words)
Section name	Header	Total	Header	Total
(Top)	18,888	18,888	478	478
Background	9,388	9,388	385	385
Nominations	196	12,462	0	226
Democratic Party	3,426	3,426	73	73
Republican Party	3,262	3,262	63	63
Libertarian Party	2,093	2,093	38	38
Green Party	3,485	3,485	52	52
General election campaigns	33	142,855	0	4,009
Ballot access	3,308	3,308	0	0
Party conventions	9,940	9,940	295	295
Issues unique to the election	38	96,623	0	3,220
Impeachment	2,548	2,548	127	127
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic	26,565	26,565	822	822
Foreign interference	21,675	21,675	920	920
Trump's potential rejection of election results	14,774	14,774	302	302
Election delay suggestion	5,368	5,368	163	163
Postal voting	11,963	11,963	492	492
Federal Election Commission issues	2,144	2,144	82	82
Supreme Court vacancy	8,207	8,207	232	232
Pre-election litigation	3,341	3,341	80	80
Debates	23,245	23,245	465	465
Polling	177	8,758	0	0
Two-way	118	118	0	0
Four-way	120	120	0	0
Swing states	306	306	0	0
Predictions	8,037	8,037	0	0
Endorsements	273	273	0	0
Total cost estimate	675	675	29	29
Campaign issues	22	33,810	0	903
COVID-19 pandemic	5,048	5,048	169	169
Economy	3,102	3,102	210	210
Environment	1,904	1,904	105	105
Health care	2,536	2,536	144	144
Racial unrest	6,771	6,771	275	275
Exit poll	14,427	14,427	0	0
Timeline	82	82	0	0
Results	196	65,165	5	1,996
Statistics	22,702	22,702	1,079	1,079
Election calls	5,561	5,561	270	270
OSCE election monitoring	5,650	5,650	278	278
Electoral results	2,637	2,637	25	25
Results by state	20,957	21,170	41	41
States and EV districts that flipped from Republican to Democratic	213	213	0	0
Close states	3,608	3,608	77	77
County statistics	1,400	1,400	14	14
Maps	2,241	2,241	207	207
Voter demographics	17,923	37,160	326	1,382
Voting patterns by ethnicity	37	14,512	0	690
Hispanic and Latino voters	4,852	4,852	180	180
Black voters	2,187	2,187	101	101
Asian American and Pacific Island voters	1,730	1,730	119	119
Indian American voters	1,854	1,854	83	83
American Indian and Alaska Native voters	3,852	3,852	207	207
Polling accuracy	4,725	4,725	366	366
Aftermath	96	122,745	0	5,621
Election night	6,242	6,242	245	245
Late counting	20,799	20,799	793	793
Election protests	2,238	2,238	144	144
False claims of fraud	24,364	24,364	1,468	1,468
Lawsuits	4,880	7,370	219	298
Texas v. Pennsylvania	2,490	2,490	79	79
Trump's refusal to concede	6,001	6,001	260	260
GSA delays certifying Biden as president-elect	1,547	1,547	98	98
Attempts to delay or deny election results	8,812	8,812	281	281
Plot for state legislatures to choose electors	3,877	3,877	221	221
Pressure on state and local officials	7,194	7,194	373	373
Election recounts	4,398	4,398	201	201
Electoral College votes	3,962	3,962	242	242
Certification and January 6th	16,510	16,510	658	658
Post-certification	3,271	3,271	149	149
Election audits	3,561	3,561	163	163
Viewership	2,503	2,503	27	27
See also	354	354	0	0
Notes	87	87	0	0
References	4,701	4,701	0	0
Further reading	3,259	5,340	0	0
Voter fraud	1,137	1,137	0	0
Policy implications	944	944	0	0
External links	1,890	1,890	0	0
Total	454,927	454,927	15,000	15,000

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Talk:2020 United States presidential election

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