What if the loser on election night doesn't concede?

Whether the loser of an election sees fit to embrace defeat and publicly concede is mostly immaterial.

"It doesn't have any independent legal effect," Rick Hasen, a University of California-Irvine professor who runs the popular Election Law Blog told CNN. "If he concedes or he doesn't concede, the votes totals will be what they will be."

Recounts are triggered automatically in 20 states and the District of Columbia when the margin of victory is sufficiently narrow, according to different laws in each of those states. The parameters vary -- in Florida and Pennsylvania, it's a margin of 0.5% or less of the total vote, while Michigan requires a deficit of 2,000 votes or less.

According to CNN, the most notable recount in recent times, after the 2000 presidential vote in Florida, began not -- as the Donald Trump campaign has suggested -- at the behest of a litigious and sour Al Gore, but in accordance with the state's predetermined rules for sorting such a narrow vote.

In all, 43 states "permit a losing candidate, a voter, a group of voters or other concerned parties to petition for a recount," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But at least a few require the loser to meet some benchmark, like in Idaho where requests are only heard if the margin is less than 0.1%.

Ultimately, the identity of the new president will be certified by the House and Senate, where electoral votes are traditionally delivered in early January, and formally signed off on by the President of the Senate -- in this case, Vice President Joe Biden. Gore, like Richard Nixon four decades earlier, literally sealed his own fate.

So Trump's statement that "I'll keep you in suspense" is really no suspense at all--whether or not he accepts the outcome will be of little consequence.