The polls clearly favour Joe Biden to win the election in just over two weeks time (at time of writing FiveThirtyEight gives him an 83 per cent chance of winning the Electoral College, and an even higher probability of winning the popular vote). Naysayers will claim that if polls got it wrong in 2016, they can get it wrong in 2020 also. It would be foolish to count Trump out, but updated polling methodologies came through a 2018 mid-term trial run without incident.

Yet although Biden is forecast to win, Donald Trump is already planning a legal challenge to the result. His campaign team will demand recounts, launch legal challenges and allege ballot fraud and election rigging. This will hardly be a victory for American civility or a fine example of democracy to the watching world.

The use of postal ballots this election makes it especially likely that litigation will abound for a chaotic few weeks after the election. With key swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin not processing record high numbers of postal ballots until Election Day, there is a fear that their ballot infrastructure might struggle to tabulate enough votes on the day to name a victor. Pennsylvania, for example, endured a disastrous weeks long effort to count primary ballots in the summer which does not bode well for this 20 Electoral College vote jewel in the rustbelt crown.

An election decided …