Get ready for a long election night — or nights.
The 2024 presidential race is likely to come down to the seven battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Winners are most likely to be called in Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina, but in the other four it may take some time, especially if the margins are close. In fact, thanks to a combination of new state laws and the inaction of legislators who could have made vote-counting more efficient — but didn’t — it may take even longer to declare a winner than it did in 2020, when news organizations called the race four days after Election Day.
A long lag between Election Day and the announcement of a winner would test the country. In 2020, misinformation and conspiracy theories flourished as vote counting dragged on in a handful of key battleground states. So for this Election Day it is critical that people know what to expect, the true nature of the likely delays and how some of them might have been prevented.
Since 2020, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have either added rules that could slow down their vote counts, or allowed existing rules that contributed to long tabulating times in 2020 to remain in place. Only Michigan and North Carolina have meaningfully changed their laws to speed up the process. (Fortunately, Georgia historically counts quickly; Trump-aligned members of the state election board recently tried to impose rules that would have slowed the process down, but Georgia’s courts rejected the attempt.)
The result is a patchwork of new developments and old laws — a few of which are encouraging, but many of which are troubling. It’s a recipe for delays and confusion if the race is close.
Results are never official on election night, but media outlets and campaigns release partial vote totals and declare winners when they think enough ballots have been counted and the margins are large enough to make a determination. The official certification comes days or weeks later.
One important thing to keep in mind this November is that the release of partial vote totals may lead to a repeat of the “red mirage” or “blue shift” phenomenon of 2020. Because Democrats have historically made heavier use of mail ballots, Republicans often appear to do better on Election Day, whereas Democrats can appear to surge in the days after the election as mail ballots are tabulated. Still unclear is whether a Republican push this year to have their voters cast ballots early will change this pattern.
In 2020, results were slow for a variety of reasons. Close races combined with a Covid-related increase in voting by mail to place greatly increased burdens on the localities that do the counting. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin did not allow mail ballots to be processed before Election Day. This remains true today. Both states considered legislation that would change that, but Republicans impeded these efforts. There’s little reason to think either state will be called earlier in 2024 than in 2020, unless new high-speed ballot-processing equipment in Philadelphia exceeds expectations.
Results in Nevada, where the presidential race is expected to be tight, are likely to be delayed again by a state law allowing mail votes postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received up to four days later. More than a dozen states allow mail ballots to be received after the election, including two, California and New York, that are expected to play an outsize role in determining which party controls the House of Representatives. California and New York allow mail ballots to be received up to seven days after the election, which can lead to delayed results in close races.
The outcome of the 2020 election in North Carolina remained fluid for over a week, as a result of a state law allowing mail ballots to arrive after Election Day. Republicans changed that law last year (over the governor’s veto) to require mail ballots to be received by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. That change should speed up tabulation, although the changes enacted last year push back the time when counties can count ballots cast during early voting — it’s now after the polls close, instead of during all of Election Day.
Arizona is likely to take longer to count votes in 2024 than it did in either 2020 or 2022, when it took six days to call a contested governor’s race. There are several culprits. The state — especially Maricopa County, where about 60 percent of the state’s registered voters live — tends to have a very large number of absentee ballots walked in on Election Day, which is permitted by state law. Those ballots must then go through the state’s thorough verification process.
Arizona’s Republican-majority Legislature has also added a requirement that local election officials count the number of ballots that are dropped off on Election Day before tabulating them, to make sure the numbers match. In addition, Maricopa County has so many races and ballot measures that voters will have to mark two ballot cards, doubling the number of pieces of paper the county must process.
Georgia’s history of efficient vote counting collided in 2020 with its law allowing a recount if the margin is within 0.5 percent — which was the case that year. The state also conducted a hand recount of ballots, which took until Nov. 19. Arizona and Pennsylvania also have automatic recounts if the margin is within 0.5 percent of the total vote. In Wisconsin a recount can be requested if the margin is within 1 percent. North Carolina allows a recount if the margin is 10,000 votes, or 0.5 percent of the votes cast, whichever number of votes is smaller. Michigan’s threshold for an automatic recount is 2,000 votes but a candidate can request one regardless of the margin. Nevada has no automatic recount but a candidate can pay for one. If a handful of these battleground states were to conduct recounts, delays could be considerable.
Five of the battleground states — Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina — give voters time after the election to “cure” mail ballots that have authentication problems such as a missing signature. This, too, could extend results in Arizona until a week after the election, Nevada until six days after the election, and Georgia and Michigan for three days. North Carolina permits its county boards to determine cure procedures.
Another unknown is the number of “provisional ballots” cast in each state by people whose eligibility is questioned at the polls and verified in the days following the election.
So don’t expect to know the winner of a close presidential contest on election night — and understand that this is because of policy choices made by each state. Delays themselves are not evidence of a conspiracy. They should not breed mistrust. If either candidate jumps the gun and declares victory before the votes are counted, dismiss it as political posturing and know that each state’s rules will decide the outcome.
The post I’ve Been Through a Lot of Election Nights. Here’s How Nov. 5 May Go. appeared first on New York Times.
