This section is here to provide answers to some questions that have been previously discussed on this talk page.
Note: This FAQ is only here to let people know that these points have previously been addressed, not to prevent any further discussion of these issues.
Q1: Why does the article call President Trump's statements about the integrity and legitimacy of the election "false"?
A1: Because reliable sources call his statements false. Though Trump often classifies these sources as "fake news", the consensus of other reliable non-news sources and Wikipedia editors is that they are reliable. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia reflects these sources, which may not align with any one individual's statements on the matter. (See also WP:TRUTH)
Q2: Why does(n't) this article use [this specific source]?
Q3: Why is Kanye West/Jo Jorgensen/Howie Hawkins/[other third party candidate] not included in the infobox at the top of this article?
A3: A consensus was reached in this discussion among Wikipedia editors to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox. Changes to this decision must also reflect consensus.
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
2020 United States presidential election was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Donald Trump, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Donald Trump on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Donald TrumpWikipedia:WikiProject Donald TrumpTemplate:WikiProject Donald TrumpDonald Trump articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles
2020 United States presidential election is within the scope of WikiProject Joe Biden, a project dedicated to creating and improving content related to Joe Biden. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Joe BidenWikipedia:WikiProject Joe BidenTemplate:WikiProject Joe BidenJoe Biden articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article is related to post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, which is a contentious topic. Furthermore, the following rules apply when editing this article:
You may not make more than 1 revert within 24 hours on this article (except in limited circumstances)
Changes challenged by reversion may not be reinstated without affirmative consensus on the talk page
Violations of any of these restrictions should be reported immediately to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard.
Editors who are aware of this topic being designated a contentious topic and who violate these restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator, even on a first offense.
With respect to the WP:1RR restriction:
Edits made solely to enforce any clearly established consensus are exempt from all edit-warring restrictions.
Edits made which remove or otherwise change any material placed by clearly established consensus, without first obtaining consensus to do so, may be treated in the same manner as obvious vandalism.
In order to be considered "clearly established" the consensus must be proven by prior talk-page discussion.
Reverts of edits made by anonymous (IP) editors are exempt from the 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring. If you are in doubt, contact an administrator for assistance.
Whenever you are relying on one of these exemptions, you should refer to it in your edit summary and, if applicable, link to the discussion where consensus was clearly established.
If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it here on this talk page first. Remember: When in doubt, don't revert!
If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.
However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end.
This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2020, when it received 25,765,871 views.
This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report10 times. The weeks in which this happened:
Consensuses reached for the 2012 and 2016 elections apply for the 2020 election as well, unless these consensuses are reversed.
Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (post-election):
A consensus has been reached to only include candidates who received at least 5% of the popular vote in the infobox.
Consensuses on pre-election presentation of candidates
Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria (pre-election): A consensus has been reached to make it so that the political parties that earned at least one electoral vote in the previous election are to, by default, be included in the infobox of the article about the next election. This means that, as of right now, only the Republican and Democratic parties are to be included in the infobox. Currently, third parties are only to be included in the infobox prior to the election if they are polling, on average, over 5% per this consensus: Rfc on inclusion for the infobox.
Consensus on infobox inclusion criteria for state subpages (pre-election):
A consensus has been reached to include candidates in the infoboxes of state subpages who are polling at an average of at least 5% in a state or are the nominees of parties whose candidates received 5% in a state in the last election.
Consensus on the order of candidates in the infobox (pre-election):
Parties that got at least one electoral vote in the 2016 election will be the first to appear in the infobox and will be ordered by how many electoral votes they got in 2016. Since the Republican Party got 306 electoral votes and the Democratic Party got 232, the Republican Party will be the first to appear in the infobox and the Democratic Party will be the second.
Some political parties that may in the future be qualified to appear in the infobox did not get any electoral votes in 2016. They will be ordered by the total amount of electoral votes in the states that have ballot access. Write-in access counts too.
If two or more parties have access to the same amount of electoral votes, they will be sorted by how many popular votes they got in 2016. If one of the parties did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be be ordered after the parties (with the access to the same amount of electoral votes) that did. If two or more parties both have access to the same amount of electoral votes and did not participate in the 2016 election, they will be sorted alphabetically by the candidates' names.
Consensus on the criteria for a potential candidate to be included in the article:
The "Publicly expressed interest" section requires only one source from the last six months where the individual is quoted as being interested in running in 2020. Social media posts do not count as public expressions of interest.
The "Potential candidates" section requires at least two sources speculating that an individual may run or where an individual talks about the 2020 election from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). The sources must not be a list of several potential candidates nor a persuasive article about why a candidate should run.
The "Declined candidates" section requires at least two sources from any point after the 2016 election (since November 9, 2016). One source must be speculative in the same vein as the "Potential candidates" section, while the second must be a quoted denial from the individual in question.
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
[[Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud#Denounced election fraud claims|publicly denounced Trump's claims of electoral fraud]] The anchor (Denounced election fraud claims) has been deleted.
[[Republican reactions to Donald Trump's claims of 2020 election fraud#Supported Donald Trump's claims of election fraud|supported]] The anchor (Supported Donald Trump's claims of election fraud) has been deleted.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors
Remove general procedures for specific elections?[edit]
This article, at the section 2020 United States presidential election#Procedure, contains general information about how U.S. presidential elections are conducted. Several other pages about national elections have similar information, but many others, such as the featured article 1880 United States presidential election, do not. I personally think this general information is out of scope of the article. As an analogy, the article 95th Academy Awards does not contain a paragraph about how the nomination and voting process works in general. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 04:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't propose removing the entire section, just the first paragraph. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another possibility is to condense the paragraph to include only basic information about the parties and electoral system, removing details such as contingent elections and restrictions on who can become president. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that we should change the photo of Joe Biden in the image box. in the 2020 election he is challenging an incumbent president so I do not believe his presidential portrait is appropriate within this context. In addition, it would help with regards to the 2024 Presidential election page, as I understand there are serious talks amoung the editors about changing Trump's photo in the infobox. Much like here is challenging an incumbent and his presidential portrait is not appropriate. I believe this photo could be a good alternative: PizzaSliced (talk) 06:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He's not looking at the camera in this image. 331dot (talk) 09:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is this typically considered a deciding factor? For example, Hilary Clinton's image in the infobox on the 2016 Presidetial Election page has her not looking at the camera aswell. PizzaSliced (talk) 09:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me for my extremely poor phrasing- he's squinting in this image. HRC is not. 331dot (talk) 10:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I 100% agree with this, 2020 should be a photo of Candidate Biden vs President Trump and likewise 2024 should be President Biden vs Candidate Trump. There was a good one from wikicommons (on the left).
Is that the only concern regarding this change? I believe that in the lead-up to this election, we should seriously consider changing this photo due to the essentially confirmed 2024 presidential election rematch. Especially considering the fact that although a rematch occurred in the 1956 election, Adlai Stevenson II was never an incumbent president, this is quite unprecedented in recent history. As outlined, I believe this change should be implemented, regardless of the specific picture of Biden chosen. 2001:8F8:1163:1DCA:19D1:AF7F:587E:5FE7 (talk) 20:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. There are plenty of potential choices in regards to a new picture of Biden in the info-box
Sounds like we're all on the same page that the presidential portrait is not the right pic. I agree, it's a little strange to use a picture taken months after the election, not before. TheSavageNorwegian 21:00, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion we should use the new official portrait taken just a few weeks after the election. Using a picture taken in 2013, for an election in 2020 is quite absurd and confusing for a reader, while photos taken during the campaign rallies have far lower quality and usually he doesn't look to the camera. We have always used the new official portrait (see Trump in 2016, Obama in 2012 and 2008, Bush in 2004 and 2000 and so on) so I sincerly don't understand why we have to change this practice now. Moreover, there had been a closed discussion in 2021, during which it was agreed to use the new official portrait of the elected-president, I sincerly believe we should continue on this way. -- Nick.mon (talk) 10:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see! Thank you for finding that thread, because I certainly hadn't. I definitely don't want to trample over consensus. My instinct is if a picture that meets our criteria of very high-quality, facing the camera, and before the election exists, we should use it, preference being for as close to the election as we can. I can certainly see how 2013 doesn't meet that, I had just assumed that it was on the page in late 2020 for a reason. I should have dug deeper, sorry! TheSavageNorwegian 14:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh don’t worry at all! We can still re-open the discussion if there’s a consensus. Even if, in my opinion, using the official portrait of the president-elect was a good compromise. -- Nick.mon (talk) 23:28, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should use the presidential portraits, better to have a photo that is more presidential, and that’s what we do on other articles. Prcc27 (talk) 00:49, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Increase the width of the results table so both margin swing and state name can be viewed at the same time. 63.155.86.129 (talk) 01:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not done: The width seems to be limited by the page width of the Vector 2022 skin (for example, the whole table is shown when I switch to Vector legacy, since it has a wider page width). Unfortunately, I believe this is beyond our control. Liu1126 (talk) 12:19, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I request that you write Donald Trump as "Donald J. Trump". This is how it is stated in all official sources. 78.177.160.99 (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]