The Vote And Voting Problems, Pre-Election Day 2020

Pennsylvania is probably the single most important state in the presidential race this year, and because election workers aren’t allowed to start processing mail ballots until Tuesday morning, it will probably take a few days to report all of its results. Adding to the potential chaos, counties aren’t actually required to count mail ballots on Tuesday — just strongly encouraged to do so.

That’s why this map from the Pennsylvania Capital-Star is so useful:

It shows when each county plans to start counting mail-in ballots, how well equipped they are to count quickly and how many they have to get through before they’re done. This is also important because the counties that don’t plan to start counting mail-in votes until Wednesday will almost certainly have too-good-to-be-true results for Trump on Nov. 3.

Beginning today in Michigan, election officials in some cities will be able to start processing absentee ballots. The new law passed last month allows officials in cities with at least 25,000 people to begin getting absentee ballots ready to count, sorting them and opening outer envelopes. But they can’t start counting until tomorrow, and can only process today from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Previously, officials had to wait until Election Day to start processing absentee ballots. Still, even with a small head start, Michigan’s secretary of state estimated that it could take until Friday for all the ballots to be counted.

For the second time, the Texas Supreme Court on Sunday denied a legal challenge to drive-through voting in Houston’s Harris County. However, a separate challenge is still pending in federal court, with a hearing scheduled for Monday morning. The Republican plaintiffs are attempting to invalidate the almost 127,000 votes cast via drive-through voting in the Democratic-leaning county.