Bob runs for office as the democratically elected leader of Tropestan, only to lose to Alice. Rather than admit defeat with poise and dignity, Bob declares that the whole thing was rigged, that Alice cheated with the help of the Deep-State, and it's everyone else that's in denial!
Peaceful transition of power
is important in any democracy, and when that doesn't happen, that's when you have problems. It's one thing to demand a vote recount (which happens on occasion in elections), but yet another to pull something like this. Election denial is when an individual or party falsely dismisses the outcome of a fair election, usually either as a manipulation tactic a la Bavarian Fire Drill or because of being so paranoid and delusional that they have convinced themselves that they are more popular than they actually are, thus the only logical conclusion is that there's an improbable conspiracy against them.
President Evil examples will typically go for this angle and declare themselves President for Life if they fail at reelection, though whether or not this sticks typically depends on the social apparatus they are set in. If this is a story where Democracy Is Bad and the government is corrupt, then it goes off without a hitch and democracy dies in an instant. If democracy refuses to go down without a fight, the losing candidate will find a way to ensure that the opposition would find themselves either dead or gravely injured, Make It Look Like an Accident, and obtain a Disqualification-Induced Victory in the process.
Worst-case scenario, the losing candidate will incite a riot, possibly an all-out coup, with the mindless horde that makes up their voting base. Going further, it may even result in a full-on Civil War.
Compare Assumed Win, where a character preemptively begins celebrating their victory in a contest or election, but backs down when they realize their mistake, and Sore Loser, who refuses to accept any loss with poise and grace. See also Still Fighting the Civil War. Contrast Offered the Crown. See also Low Count Gag (when the losing party's votes are hilariously small), and Succession Crisis (where multiple candidates fight over equal shares of the political pie).
A lot of fictional examples owe a lot to real-life instances of this, though for the sake of everyone's sanity, no real-life examples from the last 50 years, please!
Examples:
- During the Randy Feltface song "Politics", he cites that if he were to lose in the election for President of the United States, he would "choose to refuse to accept the result."
- Shrek 2: Played for Laughs in the DVD bonus game Far Far Away Idol, where if you vote for someone that Simon Cowell (In Ink-Suit Actor form) disapproves ofnote , he'll immediately disregard the results and declare himself the winner before breaking into song.
- In Bewilderment, the Trumplica president loses the re-election and alleges voter fraud, managing to win the following election on that platform.
- Black Mirror: In "The Waldo Moment" after Liam Monroe wins the election (as presumed), Waldo reacts with text provoking riots.
Waldo: Five hundred quid to anyone who can lob a shoe!
- Jack Ryan: Season 2 takes place in Venezuela, and focuses on an election between Nicolás Reyes and Gloria Bonalde. Bonalde is popular with the people, enough for Reyes to become nervous enough to do anything from attacking her image to trying to recruit her. "Strongman" sees the polls closed mid-election with the excuse that Reyes' lead is so definitive that it's pointless to continue. Riots ensue, Reyes is overthrown and it's revealed that Bonalde was in fact the victor by a landslide.
- Leverage: A variation during the 3rd season. Season Big Bad Damien Moreau has been bribing the president of the country of San Lorenzo and financing his re-election in exchange for political protection. When the most likely candidates to successfully run against him are imprisoned; the team is called for help. They succeed in making it a very close election, then fake a government announcement that their candidate has successfully defeated the president before the votes are all counted. They simultaneously persuade the president to concede by offering him even more as a bribe than Moreau can. The new president takes over "despite the confusion with the initial voting results", gaining legitimacy by freeing the imprisoned opposition and giving them positions in his cabinet.
- In the Madam Secretary episode "Gift Horse", in a last-ditch attempt to overturn President Dalton's reelection after the House of Representatives decided it in favor of him (and using a rather impressive amount of Artistic License – Politicsnote ), his main opponent Governor Sam Evans sues the state of Ohio under an obscure anti-lobbying law for allowing Dalton onto the ballot as an independent candidate in the first place, attempting to overturn the election result in Ohio and thereby invalidate the House vote. Russell Jackson ultimately blackmails him into shutting up and dropping the lawsuit, and Dalton is inaugurated for a second term with no further drama.
- The Orville: In "Gently Falling Rain", Teleya unseats the incumbent Krill Chancellor in the general election. He calls her win fraudulent and attempts to contest it by referring the matter to a court, but Teleya and her supporters arrest him and she publicly executes him the next day.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: After the assassination of Chancellor K'mpec, Picard is forced to pick a successor between Duras and Gowron. The latter wins, but only because Worf kills the former in retaliation for the death of his mate, K'Ehleyr. Many of Duras' supporters refuse to recognize Gowron's authority, and willingly ally in a civil war to overthrow the legitimately appointed Chancellor, unaware that the Duras Sisters have thrown their lot in with the Romulans. Ultimately, thanks to Worf willingly siding with Gowron and Starfleet exposing the Romulan's involvement, Gowron is able to maintain power.
- Irish Mythology: This happened among the gods. When Dagda, the High King of the Gods retired from the position, an election was held by the rest of the gods to choose a successor. Dagda's eldest son Bodb Derg was chosen. While most of the losing gods accepted this, two did not. One was Lir, primordial Anthropomorphic Personification of the sea, and Midir the Proud, Bodb Derg's younger brother. Bodb was able to smooth things over with Lir by giving one of his daughters to him in marriage. Things did not go as smoothly with Midir, who went to war with Bodb, causing a civil war among the gods. While detailed accounts of this war are unknown, it was said to have been highly destructive and lasted a long time until Bodb Derg eventually recruited the heroic mortal warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his Fianna to help put an end to it.
- The Book of Mormon:
- Only a few years after the monarchy is replaced with a system of judges, a man named Amlici campaigns to be instated as a new king. It's put to a democratic vote, and he's defeated — but rather than accept it, he has his supporters anoint him their king, then sets out to conquer the rest.
- After the death of chief judge Pahoran, a Succession Crisis between three of his sons is resolved by holding an election, where the largest vote goes to the eldest, also named Pahoran. However, one of the other sons, Paanchi, gets upset by his loss and stirs up his supporters to secede and anoint him their king. This gets Paanchi tried for treason and executed, whereupon those supporters are upset further, and send a man to assassinate Pahoran.
- The schism between the Sunni and Shi'a branches of Islam is partly due to this. Sunnis believe that the Prophet Muhammad's rightful successor as caliph was his father-in-law Abu Bakr, who was elected to the role by the early Muslim leaders. The proto-Shi'ites rejected this, claiming that Muhammad had designated his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor, and that the caliphate should be hereditary. Ali was instead eventually elected the fourth caliph following the assassination of Uthman, but a series of rebellions, Ali's assassination by a Kharijite dissident, and the founding of the hereditary Umayyad Caliphate finalized the split.
- In Of Thee I Sing, near the end of the election night newsreel, a telegram from John P. Wintergreen's unnamed opponent congratulates him on his victory and charges him with fraud in Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Montana, Washington, Ohio and Massachusetts.
- In the Jreg video "I Won (And By A Lot)", Jreg responds to losing the election for Mayoralship of Ottawa by declaring victory, stating that there is a deep-state conspiracy out to undermine democracy. He then tells all of his voters to storm the capital of Ottawa... as in the capital 'O' in a public sculpture of the word 'Ottawa'.
- The Batman (2004): In the episode “Thunder”, Maxie Zeus runs for the Gotham mayoral election against incumbent Marion Grange. Grange ends up winning, but Zeus refuses to accept it, so he takes charge of an airborne warship in an effort to force Gotham to submit to his rule.
- In the Family Guy episode "Back To The Pilot", Brian takes advantage of Stewie's time machine to personally thwart 9/11. This had a domino effect where Bush failed to win reelection without The War on Terror to keep him in office. This caused him to reform the Confederate States of America and start a Second American Civil War, leaving Quahog a Fallout-esque hellscape.
- Subverted in the King of the Hill revival. Over the course of the Time Skip, Conspiracy Theorist Dale Gribble was Easily Elected Mayor of Arlen, but resigned two days in after "denying the results of [his] own election." He elaborates that he didn't want to be part of any system dumb enough to give him any power over it.
- South Park: The B-plot of "Trapper Keeper" revolves around Mr. Garrison's kindergarten class holding an election for class president. Ike wins, but his opponent Fillmore and his supporters refuse to accept the result and demand recounts before calling in Rosie O'Donnell to protest the results and bring in lawyers. Eventually, Fillmore decides "this game is stupid" and concedes so the class can finger paint.
- Following the events of The October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks insisted that they were a provisional government and that the previously planned democratic elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly would be proceeding as normal. Since the Bolsheviks had just had a successful revolution against the former government, which had largely been considered ineffectual, they were probably counting on a landslide victory in their favour to legitimize their rule — we say probably, because when that didn't happen and the more moderate Social Revolutionary Party won, the in-power Bolsheviks declared the entire election unfair, disbanded the Constitutional Assembly, banned all other parties, and kept power as a one-party dictatorship. The Soviet Union was declared after Lenin and his supporters won the resultant Civil War.
