On Thursday, Quinnipiac University released a series of polls on presidential head-to-head match-ups in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. President Donald Trump narrowly won all three of those states in 2016 and, with them, the White House itself. Quinnipiac’s polls showed the current Democratic candidates ahead in the first two states by varying margins, as well as a sizable lead for Trump against his current challengers in Wisconsin.

State polls should be taken with a large grain of salt, especially when Election Day is still nine months away and the Democratic field is in flux. Quinnipiac’s findings still illustrate how tumultuous this fall’s election could be. Assume first that Trump’s opponent wins every state that Clinton won in 2016. Assume next that they flip Michigan and Pennsylvania, as the Quinnipiac poll indicates, and secure all four of Maine’s electoral votes. In that event, the Electoral College would deadlock in a 269-to-269 vote, adding an extraordinary layer of chaos and uncertainty to the electoral process.

And yet, in 2020, this might not be the worst of all possible Election Day scenarios. After all, the Constitution provides us with a road map to follow in the event of a tie: If no candidate commands a majority when the electors gather in December, the Twelfth Amendment would then allow the House of Representatives and the Senate to elect the next president and vice president, respectively. That amendment also states that when the House elects a president, “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote.” If the current House voted along party lines, the Republican candidate would receive 26 votes, and the Democratic candidate would receive 23 votes. (Pennsylvania’s House delegation is equally divided at the moment.)

That process would be a corrosive blow to Americans’ faith in the democratic process. What sets 2020 apart is that the president has set crises in motion that are potentially more dire. The Ukraine scandal showed that Trump is willing to abuse his power to cheat in this year’s election, that most Republicans support those efforts, and that Congress as an institution is effectively powerless to stop him. Most of the commentary surrounding this year’s vote is about the candidates and the issues, and for good reason. What Americans must also reckon with is how badly it could all go wrong.

Some threats are beyond the country’s immediate ability to control. Americans can only do so much if a natural disaster disrupts the process, as Hurricane Sandy did during the 2012 election. Preventing cyberattacks, whether by foreign adversaries or domestic malcontents, also became more urgent after investigators found evidence that Russian operatives had compromised state and county systems in 2016. This year’s Iowa caucus showed how even accidental systemic failures can undermine confidence in election results.