At the root, I am worried for the future of democracy.
This is a very different election to any that has been held in America for over a century.
I am not sure the delayed result is a problem unless it goes on for a very long time.
I think whoever wins in the end, the other side – supporters and politicians – are quite likely to question the validity.
That is potentially the huge problem.
If you have a large number of people who don’t accept the result, then you have a genuine crisis.
Trump was already trying to say that postal votes were quite open to fraud.
If Biden wins after states such as Pennsylvania swing to him on the remaining postal votes to be counted, I think Trump and a lot of his supporters will not accept the result.
It would take a very long time to sort the results out because there would be massive litigation that will go all the way up to the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, if Trump wins, a lot of Biden supporters are going to be very suspicious.
They will question why everything has swung so suddenly to Trump in the key states after all the polls suggested Biden was ahead.
They may also feel alienated from the democratic process as these people were hoping for fundamental change.
It all depends on what happens in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which will all be fairly close.
I have been worried about this exact situation. If America has problems, these issues could spread even further.
At the moment, western liberal democratic ideas are under huge challenges. A lot of people in the east, particularly the Chinese, are pointing to the disastrous handling of Covid-19 in Europe and in the USA as evidence democracy doesn’t work.
In Britain, we have Brexit and a lot of people are saying the country made the wrong choice.
Here we are now in America and we have the potential for an electoral meltdown.
It could lead to a fundamental change in how we view the world and how it should function at a time where there is so much information and fake information floating around.
If we look back to 1938 before the Second World War, or to 1860 on the eve of the American Civil War, I don’t think that people thought those events were about to happen.
You never know what is around the corner. I just think we are in a potentially scary time now.
I’m not saying I expect anything like that to happen but the possibilities are very worrying.
In this election, tensions are running so high and people’s expectations are so high. It has also been such an unexpectedly close race.
This all has to be sorted out by January and I just wonder how it will be resolved ultimately to the satisfaction of both sides.
Let’s hope they can find a way to push forward.
Dr Matthew Ward is a Dundee University senior lecturer and historian of America.