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 (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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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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.

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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, when it received 25,765,871 views.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 10 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Consensuses reached for the 2012 and 2016 elections apply for the 2020 election as well, unless these consensuses are reversed.

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (post-election):
A consensus has been reached to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox.

Consensuses on pre-election presentation of candidates

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (pre-election):
A consensus has been reached to make it so that 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. Currently, third parties are only to be included in the infobox prior to the election if they are polling, on average, over 5% per this consensus: Rfc on inclusion for the infobox.

Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria for state subpages (pre-election):
A consensus has been reached to 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.

Consensus on the order of candidates in the infobox (pre-election):

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.

Consensus on the 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.

The following images have been discussed:

Joe Biden (consensus link)

Consensus

Consensus on when to update the popular vote:

Initial: The popular vote tally and percentage should be updated twelve hours after polls close, and then every six hours thereafter.
Superseded: A consensus was agreed upon to shorten the time between updates.

Section sizes

Section size for 2020 United States presidential election (77 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	50,130	50,130
Background	11,871	11,871
Nominations	196	11,526
Democratic Party	2,986	2,986
Republican Party	2,775	2,775
Libertarian Party	2,083	2,083
Green Party	3,486	3,486
General election campaigns	33	142,100
Ballot access	3,595	3,595
Party conventions	9,939	9,939
Issues unique to the election	38	95,416
Impeachment	2,555	2,555
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic	26,672	26,672
Foreign interference	21,696	21,696
Trump's potential rejection of election results	14,777	14,777
Election delay suggestion	4,029	4,029
Postal voting	11,955	11,955
Federal Election Commission issues	2,144	2,144
Supreme Court vacancy	8,208	8,208
Pre-election litigation	3,342	3,342
Debates	23,411	23,411
Polling	177	8,758
Two-way	118	118
Four-way	120	120
Swing states	306	306
Predictions	8,037	8,037
Endorsements	273	273
Total cost estimate	675	675
Campaign issues	22	19,324
COVID-19 pandemic	5,042	5,042
Economy	3,099	3,099
Environment	1,917	1,917
Health care	2,537	2,537
Racial unrest	6,707	6,707
Results	196	61,703
Statistics	21,020	21,020
Election calls	5,787	5,787
OSCE election monitoring	5,658	5,658
Electoral results	1,619	1,619
Results by state	20,658	20,658
States and EV districts that flipped from Republican to Democratic	211	211
Close states	3,668	3,668
County statistics	1,381	1,381
Maps	1,505	1,505
Voter demographics	19,584	38,248
Voting patterns by ethnicity	37	14,126
Hispanic and Latino voters	4,652	4,652
Black voters	2,192	2,192
Asian American and Pacific Island voters	1,532	1,532
Indian American voters	1,855	1,855
American Indian and Alaska Native voters	3,858	3,858
Polling accuracy	4,538	4,538
Aftermath	96	118,453
Election night	6,242	6,242
Late counting	21,017	21,017
Election protests	2,238	2,238
False claims of fraud	23,146	23,146
Lawsuits	4,420	6,909
Texas v. Pennsylvania	2,489	2,489
Trump's refusal to concede	5,976	5,976
GSA delays certifying Biden as president-elect	1,546	1,546
Attempts to delay or deny election results	5,776	5,776
Plot for state legislatures to choose electors	3,877	3,877
Pressure on state and local officials	6,525	6,525
Recounts	5,728	5,728
Electoral College votes	3,967	3,967
Certification and January 6th	16,138	16,138
Post-certification	3,242	3,242
Election audits	3,523	3,523
Viewership	2,507	2,507
See also	293	293
Notes	87	87
References	5,183	5,183
Further reading	3,259	5,312
Voter fraud	1,109	1,109
Policy implications	944	944
External links	1,580	1,580
Total	465,810	465,810

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Remove general procedures for specific elections?

This article, at the section 2020 United States presidential election#Procedure, contains general information about how U.S. presidential elections are conducted. Several other pages about national elections have similar information, but many others, such as the featured article 1880 United States presidential election, do not. I personally think this general information is out of scope of the article. As an analogy, the article 95th Academy Awards does not contain a paragraph about how the nomination and voting process works in general. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 04:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Helpful Raccoon That section refers to United States presidential election § Procedure for further information about general procedures. But note, that section also has procedural changes that were specific to 2020. See also Talk:Trump fake electors plot#Electoral College rules rootsmusic (talk) 22:58, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't propose removing the entire section, just the first paragraph. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility is to condense the paragraph to include only basic information about the parties and electoral system, removing details such as contingent elections and restrictions on who can become president. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, thanks @Helpful Raccoon! rootsmusic (talk) 17:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Joe Biden Image in infobox change

I believe that we should change the photo of Joe Biden in the image box. in the 2020 election he is challenging an incumbent president so I do not believe his presidential portrait is appropriate within this context. In addition, it would help with regards to the 2024 Presidential election page, as I understand there are serious talks amoung the editors about changing Trump's photo in the infobox. Much like here is challenging an incumbent and his presidential portrait is not appropriate. I believe this photo could be a good alternative: PizzaSliced (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

He's not looking at the camera in this image. 331dot (talk) 09:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is this typically considered a deciding factor? For example, Hilary Clinton's image in the infobox on the 2016 Presidetial Election page has her not looking at the camera aswell. PizzaSliced (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for my extremely poor phrasing- he's squinting in this image. HRC is not. 331dot (talk) 10:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I 100% agree with this, 2020 should be a photo of Candidate Biden vs President Trump and likewise 2024 should be President Biden vs Candidate Trump. There was a good one from wikicommons (on the left).

68.189.2.14 :::::(talk) 17:27, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is that the only concern regarding this change? I believe that in the lead-up to this election, we should seriously consider changing this photo due to the essentially confirmed 2024 presidential election rematch. Especially considering the fact that although a rematch occurred in the 1956 election, Adlai Stevenson II was never an incumbent president, this is quite unprecedented in recent history. As outlined, I believe this change should be implemented, regardless of the specific picture of Biden chosen. 2001:8F8:1163:1DCA:19D1:AF7F:587E:5FE7 (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There are plenty of potential choices in regards to a new picture of Biden in the info-box

PizzaSliced (talk) 07:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is the last time this topic was discussed btw. The Savage Norwegian 21:24, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like we're all on the same page that the presidential portrait is not the right pic. I agree, it's a little strange to use a picture taken months after the election, not before. The Savage Norwegian 21:00, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Back in December of 2020, they were using File:Joe Biden 2013.jpg. how do we feel about that? The Savage Norwegian 21:18, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion we should use the new official portrait taken just a few weeks after the election. Using a picture taken in 2013, for an election in 2020 is quite absurd and confusing for a reader, while photos taken during the campaign rallies have far lower quality and usually he doesn't look to the camera. We have always used the new official portrait (see Trump in 2016, Obama in 2012 and 2008, Bush in 2004 and 2000 and so on) so I sincerly don't understand why we have to change this practice now. Moreover, there had been a closed discussion in 2021, during which it was agreed to use the new official portrait of the elected-president, I sincerly believe we should continue on this way. -- Nick.mon (talk) 10:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see! Thank you for finding that thread, because I certainly hadn't. I definitely don't want to trample over consensus. My instinct is if a picture that meets our criteria of very high-quality, facing the camera, and before the election exists, we should use it, preference being for as close to the election as we can. I can certainly see how 2013 doesn't meet that, I had just assumed that it was on the page in late 2020 for a reason. I should have dug deeper, sorry! The Savage Norwegian 14:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh don’t worry at all! We can still re-open the discussion if there’s a consensus. Even if, in my opinion, using the official portrait of the president-elect was a good compromise. -- Nick.mon (talk) 23:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should use the presidential portraits, better to have a photo that is more presidential, and that’s what we do on other articles. Prcc27 (talk) 00:49, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 3 April 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Increase the width of the results table so both margin swing and state name can be viewed at the same time. 63.155.86.129 (talk) 01:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: The width seems to be limited by the page width of the Vector 2022 skin (for example, the whole table is shown when I switch to Vector legacy, since it has a wider page width). Unfortunately, I believe this is beyond our control. Liu1126 (talk) 12:19, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NAME

I request that you write Donald Trump as "Donald J. Trump". This is how it is stated in all official sources. 78.177.160.99 (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]