The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020

Dylan Doherty from Hamtramck, Michigan: I understand that Democrats are more likely to vote absentee/mail-in, but why would that lead to a “red mirage”/"blue shift”? Are in-person ballots all counted first and then absentee ballots? Why would that be?

The short answer is that it depends on the state. But it’s true that some states may see a “blue shift” or “red mirage” based on how their votes are counted, because some will count Republican-leaning Election Day votes before many Democratic-leaning mail ballots. After all, we know that mail ballots will be disproportionately more Democratic -- in 19 states where there’s party registration, around 51 percent of mail or in-person early votes have been cast by registered Democrats, compared with just about 26 percent by Republicans, based on data from Michael McDonald at the University of Florida. However, the count pattern will vary from state to state, and some could initially have more Democratic-leaning results that then trend Republican.

Pennsylvania is a battleground state that might see a notable shift in a Democratic direction, in part because election officials cannot begin processing mail ballots until the morning of Election Day. As such, we can probably expect most Election Day votes to be counted that night, but we can’t know for sure how many mail ballots will have been tallied. A large number of mail ballots will have already been returned, which could help officials get into a position to count a sizable share of them. But the vote count was very slow in some parts of the state during the June presidential primary, and even with that experience under their belt, election officials will have far more ballots to count in the general election. And there’s little question that mail ballots are going to lean heavily toward Biden, as recent Pennsylvania polls have shown that around three-fourths of voters who plan to vote by mail or who have already voted back Biden.

However, other states could actually see a “red shift” as their counts wear on. Florida begins processing mail ballots 22 days before the election, and state law requires county election officials to report all tabulated early and mail ballots within 30 minutes of polls closing, which is 7 p.m. Eastern in most of the state. So the early rush to send in mail ballots this year could mean that a huge Democratic-leaning tranche of ballots will be reported fairly early on Election Night and ahead of many Republican-leaning Election Day ballots. The final result could then come down to whether a Democratic lead will hold up, instead of a Republican one like in some other states.