If you’ve ever sat staring at a news crawl as results trickle in, you’ve probably felt that sinking feeling that something is just... off. Maybe it’s a report of a glitchy machine in a swing county or a sudden "discovery" of a box of ballots in a trunk. It’s natural to wonder: can we just start over? Can an election be redone if the mess is big enough?
The short answer is yes. It happens. But it is incredibly rare, and the "how" is a legal maze that makes most people's heads spin.
Honestly, we usually think of elections as these one-shot, permanent deals. You cast the vote, the machines whir, and someone gets a trophy (or a seat in Congress). But every few years, a judge looks at a pile of evidence and says, "Nope. This is too broken to fix. Let’s do it again."
The Legal Reality: When Do We Actually Get a Do-Over?
In the United States, there is no "undo" button in the Constitution. You won’t find a clause that says the President can just call for a revote because they didn't like the vibe of the first one. In fact, a federal judge recently reminded everyone of this in January 2026, ruling that the power to run (and rerun) elections belongs to states and Congress, not the White House.
So, how does it happen? Usually, it starts with an election contest. This isn't just a candidate complaining on social media. It's a formal lawsuit. A candidate, or sometimes a group of voters, has to prove in court that something went so sideways that the result is basically a fiction.
Courts generally look for two things:
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- Fraud: Someone intentionally stuffed the ballot box or tampered with the tally.
- Error: A massive mechanical failure or a "mistake of law" that disenfranchised enough people to change the outcome.
The bar is high. Like, really high. Judges hate overturning elections because it shakes public trust. They won't order a redo just because ten people were told the wrong polling place. They need to see that the number of "tainted" votes is larger than the margin of victory. If you win by 1,000 votes and there are only 500 suspicious ones, the court will usually let the result stand.
Real-World Chaos: The North Carolina 9th District
If you want to see what this looks like in the real world, look at the 2018 race for North Carolina's 9th Congressional District. It's the "gold standard" for election redos.
Republican Mark Harris appeared to beat Democrat Dan Bishop by a slim margin. But then stories started leaking out about a political operative who was allegedly "collecting" absentee ballots—a practice known as ballot harvesting, which was illegal there. People reported that their unsealed ballots were being picked up by strangers who promised to mail them but never did.
The state’s Board of Elections didn't just shrug it off. They held an evidentiary hearing that felt like a courtroom drama. Harris’s own son testified that he’d warned his dad about the operative’s shady tactics. In the end, the board didn't just order a recount; they voided the whole thing.
They held a brand-new election in 2019. It cost taxpayers millions. It took 308 days from the original vote to the final redo. That’s the reality of a "redo"—it’s slow, expensive, and leaves a district without representation for months.
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Can the Presidential Election Be Redone?
This is the big one. This is what everyone asks during a heated November.
The honest truth? It has never happened, and most legal scholars think it's nearly impossible.
The U.S. Constitution, in Article II, says Congress sets a single "Day" for choosing electors. This is known as Election Day. Federal law (3 U.S.C. § 1) specifies it's the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Because the Constitution requires this day to be "the same throughout the United States," most courts believe you can't just have Florida or Ohio vote again in December.
In the infamous Bush v. Gore (2000) case, the Florida Supreme Court was essentially told that there wasn't enough time to even finish a recount, let alone a full redo, before the Electoral College deadline. The "hard stop" is January 20th. If there’s no winner by then, we don’t get a revote; we get the Presidential Succession Act, and the Speaker of the House might end up as Acting President.
Local Redos: Where the Action Actually Is
While federal redos are rare, local ones happen more than you’d think. Small-town politics can be wild.
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- Bridgeport, Connecticut (2023): A judge tossed out the results of a Democratic mayoral primary after surveillance footage showed someone stuffing stacks of envelopes into a drop box. The judge literally said the evidence was so "shocking" that he couldn't let the result stand. They had to do it all over again.
- Iron County, Missouri (2020): A sheriff's race was redone after it was discovered that some voters were given ballots for the wrong district. It only took 49 days to get the new vote sorted.
- New Hampshire (2022): A state house race ended in a dead heat—a literal tie. Instead of flipping a coin (which some states actually do!), the legislature voted to hold a redo election to let the people break the tie.
What Triggers the "Nuclear Option"?
Think of a redo election as the nuclear option of democracy. It's the last resort when a recount won't fix the problem. Here’s a quick breakdown of the mess-ups that typically trigger one:
| Problem Type | Examples that led to a redo |
|---|---|
| Mechanical Failure | In 1974, Louisiana's 6th District had voting machines that simply didn't record votes properly. A redo was ordered 63 days later. |
| The "Ineligible" Factor | If a candidate dies right before the election or is found to be legally unqualified (like not living in the district), and they win, a special election is often called. |
| Human Error | Polling places opening hours late or ballots missing a candidate’s name entirely. If the number of people who couldn't vote is higher than the margin, watch out. |
| The "Dead Tie" | When the count is perfect and no state law provides a tie-breaker, a revote is the only way to get a winner. |
What You Should Do If You Suspect an Election Is Broken
If you’re a voter and you see something that makes you think your local election is headed for a courtroom, don't just post about it.
First, document everything. If a machine gives you an error message, take a photo (if legal in your state) or tell a poll worker immediately. Second, contact your local board of elections. Most states have a strict deadline—sometimes as short as 48 hours after the polls close—to file an official protest.
If you're a candidate, you need an election lawyer. Period. You’ll need to prove "but for" the error, you would have won. That is a massive evidentiary burden.
Ultimately, we don't redo elections because they're messy or because we're unhappy with the winner. We redo them when the process itself fails so fundamentally that the "will of the people" is impossible to find. It’s a messy, expensive, and legally exhausting process, but it’s the fail-safe that keeps the system honest.
Next Steps for Concerned Voters:
- Check your state’s specific Election Contest Laws on your Secretary of State’s website; every state has different rules for who can file a challenge.
- Look up the Canvassing Schedule for your county to see when results are officially certified, as most challenges must happen before this date.
- Join a non-partisan poll watching group to help ensure the first vote is the only one that needs to happen.