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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsActually, We Will Know a Lot on Election Night
Pundits are warning that election night in November may turn into election week or even election month. Amid the pandemic, election officials are bracing for a flood of ballots sent by mail, and Americans may need to wait an unusually long time to know for sure who won and by how much. But that doesnt mean we will be in the dark about the next president until all the official state counts are completed. In all likelihood, we will have a good idea on election night, or within a few days after, of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden won the White House.
Many observers expect the states to take an inordinately long time to count votes this November because, according to a recent nationwide survey, more than 50% of voters may end up casting mail ballots this year, up from 20% in 2016. Thirteen states, including the swing states of Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, wait until election day to process their mail ballots. (Processing is the act of verifying the identity of the voter who returned the mail ballot, usually by matching the signature on the ballot to one on file; the actual counting comes later.) If the election comes down to mail ballots cast in those states, waiting for them to verify the ballots and count the votes could push the election into overtime.
Because more Democrats than Republicans have requested mail ballots this year, the vote totals on Election Dayreflecting all in-person voting but not all mail ballotscould paint a misleading picture about who won. Josh Mendelsohn, CEO of the Democratic data firm Hawkfish, has warned of an election-day red mirage of victory for Mr. Trump, which will be replaced in short order by a blue shift as the outstanding, heavily Democratic mail ballots are counted. Such a dramatic change from the election-night result could lead to baseless Republican charges of fraud and cries that the election was rigged, which could spark dangerous political unrest.
These nightmare scenarios ignore several key facts, however. Most states begin processing their ballots before election day, and almost all begin putting them through scanners before the polls close. Many states intermingle sent-by-mail and election-day ballots at the polling places, where they are scanned together, so that when the precinct count is released, it contains both in-person and mail ballots. In such stateswhich include such battlegrounds as New Hampshire and most of Wisconsinthe polling place counts may be released a few hours later than they might in another year, but not days later. More generally, local jurisdictions have been preparing all summer for a surge in mail ballots; most will be counted on election day in parallel with the days in-person ballots, so that the results of many ballots cast in advance can be announced early on election night.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/actually-we-will-know-a-lot-on-election-night/ar-BB19nUOU?li=BBnb7Kz
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)Blue Owl
(50,351 posts)Biden will WIN!
qazplm135
(7,447 posts)An opinion article, or the dozen or so voting officials who indeed say, no, we probably won't be able to complete our counting on election night?
The PA election officials are not saying that all but a few mail-in ballots will be counted on election night. Neither are other states where they can't start opening ballots until election day.
Now we know FL is great at counting mail in ballots so if Biden wins FL, then a lot of this is moot.
Or if Biden wins Texas, or GA + NC.
So it's neither a guarantee we won't know NOR is it a guarantee we will.
DonaldsRump
(7,715 posts)What triggered is that I got an email this morning from CA's Secretary of State which says that CA will accept November 3 postmarked mail-in ballots for 17 days after November 3 (November 20 or 21, depending on how you count). CA is clearly not going to be a problem for Joe and Kamala, but it could be an issue in PA and WI.
There is a real concern, but it can be greatly alleviated if Joe blows out the Infector-in-Chief in other states. I am sure that PA and WI will go for Joe, but the Impeached Fat One will make great noise if there is any delay in calling this election.
The bottom line: regardless of where your friends and family, urge them to vote as early as possible, especially if they vote by mail.
stopdiggin
(11,299 posts)and quite a bit more will be available to calculation and reasonable supposition (i.e., votes still out, votes in and remaining to be counted, and percentages of likely party preference in respective categories) Final and complete tallies may lag somewhat -- but that is not to say that we won't have some fairly good data in a reasonable amount of time.
One more thing -- the prospect of Trump trumpeting and blowing about on election night (probably even prior to poll closings) -- will mean precisely nothing to a nation accustomed to a gasbag trumpeting and blowing about (without any basis in fact) about all manner of things on a regular basis.