What Results Might Look Like On Election Night
As Nathaniel wrote earlier today, we’re busy tracking what we can expect in terms of results on election night, and in some states like Ohio, it sounds as if we could be waiting up to two weeks. So which states at this point do we anticipate to be the biggest messes? And which states seem to have their act together?
Nathaniel: Well, I want to be very clear that taking a long time to count votes does not mean a state is a mess. It’s better to have a clean and accurate count that takes several days than a messy, error-riddled count that gets released on election night.
Sarah: Sure… but couldn’t some of these delays have been avoided with better planning?
Nathaniel: In some cases, yes. But other states are constricted by state law. For instance, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t allow election officials to even start processing absentee ballots until Election Day, virtually guaranteeing that they will report results late. Michigan was in a similar situation until the legislature passed a bill allowing them to start processing absentee ballots on Monday, Nov. 2 — but that’s still not very much time.
Maya: On the other hand, you have states like Arizona, which is historically very friendly to voting by mail, modifying state law to ease the vote counting process. In 2019, the Arizona state legislature passed a law allowing counties to start counting early ballots up to two weeks ahead of Election Day (previously, counties could only start one week before). Those early ballot counts will be included in the initial results released on Nov. 3, according to the Arizona secretary of state.
Nathaniel: Arizona is interesting to me, Maya. On paper, they look very well prepared for a tidy count on election night. But in the 2018 midterms, they kept releasing new results for a week after the election (in which Democrat Kyrsten Sinema overtook Republican Martha McSally in the Senate race). And the Maricopa County recorder is warning that some ballots will not be reported until Thursday or Friday this year.
Maya: Georgia is interesting, too, in that it is one of a handful of states that allow ballot processing to begin upon receipt. Compare that to a state like Michigan, which is only allowing cities of more than 25,000 people to begin processing ballots the day before Election Day. As a result, I can see a scenario where Georgia reports a much larger share of its vote on election night even though both Georgia and Michigan currently have Nov. 3 ballot receipt deadlines.
Kaleigh: Georgia is certainly one state to watch. Not only could it be a key battleground state, it also has had a number of lawsuits surrounding election administration and a disastrous primary with voters never receiving absentee ballots and hours-long lines to vote in person.
Nathaniel: Florida and Texas are two competitive states, though, that will probably produce results quickly. That’s because Florida starts processing absentee ballots weeks before Election Day and requires all absentees to arrive by Nov. 3. In fact, during their primary, we got almost complete results within a couple hours. Texas, meanwhile, is one of only five states that is not allowing anyone who wants to vote by mail. That means the election should be relatively unchanged there, which means (hopefully) results on Nov. 3.
Two big wild cards are North Carolina and Ohio. Both of those states process and report early absentee ballots quickly, but they also accept absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day. So it all depends on how close the early vote is in those states and how many ballots arrive after Election Day.
Maya: If anyone wants to check out which states accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, or which states don’t allow everyone to vote by mail, check out our state-by-state guide to voting in 2020, which is updated daily with the latest rulings and deadlines!