Election workers process absentee ballot applications at the Mecklenburg Board of Elections office in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 4, 2020. Trump simply does not have the power to cancel the presidential election outright, and if there’s no election, at noon on Jan. 20, he simply stops being president. An interesting side note: If no election is held, not only does Trump cease being president at noon Jan. 20, Mike Pence also stops being vice president. (Many states require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Day, not be just postmarked by then.) (And we also know we don’t have one single Election Day, but an “election window” that sometimes extends weeks past Election Day as the mail-in ballots are tallied.)