AAmericans will have a president elected in the coming days. While there are many checks and balances to ensure the safety of America’s election process, there are a few ways candidates could challenge the results.

One path candidates can take is a recount. Rules about who can request a recount vary by state — in some, a recount is automatically requested if the race is in a tight margin, while in others, candidates can request a recount, according to Matthew Weil, executive director of Bipartisan . Policy Center Democracy Program. In some states, the margin must decrease in a certain percentage for candidates to request a recount.

Candidates may decide to file a formal contest of certified results, according to Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University School of Law and an expert on constitutional and election law. A campaign could also bring other legal actions challenging an aspect of the election. “If a campaign has a legitimate, factual and legal basis to bring a contest challenge, that’s how result disputes should be handled,” says Pildes. “If a lawsuit is filed that does not have the proper factual and legal basis, then it is an abuse of the system or an abuse of process. It can also undermine confidence in elections without legitimate reason.”

Former President Donald Trump has already began to sow doubt on the integrity of the result if he loses, repeating false and unfounded allegations of cheating in key states. Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris campaign they have teams of lawyers preparing for post-election litigation.

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The deadline for resolving electoral disputes is tighter for the presidential race than for other places. States have until Dec. 10 to resolve any disputes over the presidential race, as members Electoral College they meet and vote on December 17.

Both Pildes and Weil say it’s rare for either of these paths to change the outcome of a race. Many experts have pointed out that America’s electoral process – and your vote – is safe. Weil says the country has also made more improvements to the system over the years, such as through audits.

Weil says recounts “very rarely move the numbers by anything more than double digits” because even if the percentage margin seems small, it usually represents thousands of votes. And the bar for litigation is high: “Not only do you have to prove harm, you also have to somehow show that the harm was great enough that it affected enough ballots to change the outcome of the election,” Weil says.

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False claims about the electoral process began to spread after 2020 electionswhen Trump he refused to yield to President Joe Biden. Trump’s campaign and allies continued files dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits causing the result.

Experts fear that contesting the results without sufficient evidence could breed distrust in the electoral process. On January 6, 2021, rioters who insisted – without evidence – that Trump had won the election stormed and looted US Capitol to disrupt the certification of Biden’s victory.

“The risk of having a lot of challenges without evidence is a risk to trust in the voting process,” says Weil. “I think it’s very clear that when we have candidates who claim to be feeding into a narrative that’s out there, that’s going to lead to more distrust in the election.”