On November 5, voters across the country will head to the polls—and then wait as the ballots are counted to determine the next President of the United States. But there’s a good chance Americans will go to sleep that night without knowing the winner.
If, as expected, the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is close, experts say the delay in counting mail-in ballots means that there might not be a clear winner on election night.
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”The closer the election is, the less likely we will be able to know on election night,” says Andrew Hall, Professor of Political Economy at Stanford University.
Counting mail-in ballots takes longer because the process involves additional layers of processing and verification that in some states can’t begin until Election Day. “There’s a much more complicated process that election offices go through in terms of getting those ballots and confirming that they are from registered voters,” says Jen Leighley, Professor of Political Science at American University. The ballots themselves have to be unsealed, and verification sometimes involves matching up a signature or photo ID.
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In 2020, mail-in ballots made up 46% of the vote as voters turned to the option during the pandemic. President Joe Biden wasn’t officially declared the winner until Saturday, Nov. 7, more than three days after Election Day. There have been delays in statewide races, too: In Arizona, a battleground state in the 2024 contest, the vote count for the 2022 gubernatorial election went on for days after the election after the state received a last-minute flurry of mail-in ballots.
In some states, including Florida and Georgia, mail-in ballots are processed ahead of Election Day. In other key states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, processing doesn’t begin until Election Day, which can lead to delays in a tight race. In roughly half of the states, voters are able to “cure” their ballots in the case of minor errors, such as a missing signature or photo. In some cases, voters are able to cure their ballot a few days after Election Day, which can further drag out the count.
Some states have made efforts to expedite the ballot counting process. In June, Nevada moved to allow the counting of early voting returns and mail ballot returns to begin at 8 AM on Election Day, rather than after the polls close. Georgia and Michigan have also moved up their vote counting timelines.
Read More: Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar
As more voters turned to mail-in voting during the pandemic, the shift was visible as the results trickled in. “Democrats voted by mail at significantly higher rates than Republicans,” says Hall. “The early counts tended to favor the Republicans. And then as the hours and days went by and the mail ballots were being counted, you saw this big shift back towards the Democrats.” In 2020, Trump was quick to blame his loss on the delay from mail-in ballots, calling the system “corrupt.” (Courts found no significant instances of fraud in the 2020 election.)
Hall says that any delays might open the door for more post-election litigation, which could slow down results even further. “[There’s] a tail risk of a period of genuine uncertainty over who has won the election and who’s going to get certified that we haven’t really experienced before,” he says.
So when might the election be called? The answer hinges, Hall says, on when the “most contested, most crucial battleground states finish counting.” And that, experts say, is not likely to happen on Nov. 5.
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