Trump and Harris are preparing for legal battles if there is no clear winner on election night

SOURCE: VOA / AUTHOR: M.J. GDNUS
Americans vote on Tuesday to elect a new president. However, the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is so close that their teams are on alert for legal battles that could ensue to determine the outcome of the election.
Earlier this year, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told several media outlets that he would accept them if the results of the November 5 presidential election were "fair, and free."
Election officials are confident the voting process will be fair, secure and transparent, but the former president is increasingly expressing concern that his opponents may commit fraud.
"If we can prevent fraud, we will have a huge victory," Trump said.
During an interview that aired last month on the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Vice President Kamala Harris told NBC News anchor Hallie Jackson that her team would be ready if Trump lost and try to undermine the election.
"We're going to be dealing with election night and the days ahead, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus to do that," Harris said.
The Republican National Committee has a so-called "Election Integrity Program" in states that could decide the winner. The board's lawyers have filed more than a hundred lawsuits over perceived irregularities in the voting process.
Democrats have launched their own legal efforts, including a lawsuit to prevent potential delays in certifying Georgia's state election results.
In tough presidential races like this year's, legal battles are expected. Most of them will happen in undecided states, analysts predict.
"At the polling station, we often see competition over whether the ballots are handled properly or not." In the period after Election Day, there are disputes over whether individual voters actually have the right to vote and whether their ballots should be entered and counted," Michael Thorning of the Center for Bipartisan Policy.
Anyone who claims to have been defrauded must provide proof, legal experts warn.
Legal battles could delay the outcome of the presidential election. But if Tuesday night's results clearly favor one presidential candidate over the other by a narrow margin, analysts say it will be much harder for the opposing party to challenge those results.