It’s what’s on nearly everyone’s mind this week—who will win the 2024 presidential election, and when will we know?
There’s not a clear-cut answer to either question, but history—and insider info shared with the Daily Beast from Kamala Harris’ campaign—suggests we may not have a declared winner for days, or potentially weeks, after polls close Tuesday night.
States will publish unofficial results Tuesday evening that news networks and the Associated Press will use to project winners and call the race in most states. Election officials in the seven swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona—are already pleading with voters to be patient, however, as ballot-counting won’t be completed on Election Day.
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Could We See a Repeat of 2020?
Four years ago, the AP declared that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump on Saturday, Nov. 7—four days after polls closed nationwide. The days-long delay in declaring a winner was largely due to Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada.
That trio of states will likely have the nation waiting on edge yet again, says a chart compiled by the Harris campaign that was shared with the Daily Beast. It says Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, and Florida will have near-complete election results by 10 p.m. EST on election night, which could be a good barometer for how things are looking for either candidate—via margin of victory—even if those states are not expected to be flipped.
The chart from Harris’ team then projects that “most results” from Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan will be in on Election Day before midnight, and that Wisconsin will join that list by 6 a.m. EST on Wednesday morning. In the same time frame, the campaign projects that Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada will still only have “partial” results published.
The campaign notes that “tens of thousands” of provisional ballots cannot be legally counted until Friday in Pennsylvania, which is overwhelmingly considered to be the most-important swing state for both Trump and Harris.
It’s not just Harris’ campaign who is warning of a long wait. Derek Tisler, an expert on election administration and security at the Brennan Center for Justice, told NPR this week that, at the least, voters can “expect a similar timeline” to 2020.
Tisler also noted that, with polls suggesting a tighter race than four years ago, it’s possible the election’s winner won’t be known for “weeks.” He suggested this might happen if results in a tipping-point state are within a few thousands votes.
What Factors Might Hold Up the Election Count?
Why the long wait? Legal restrictions on when officials can begin processing mail-in ballots in key states was the main culprit in 2020, with Tisler sharing there’s been no major shifts—aside from in Michigan—that’d suggest there will be drastic change in how quickly votes will be tabulated this time around.
“So when we talk about processing ballots, we’re talking about mail votes,” he told NPR. “And mail votes take longer to count because there are all these steps that election workers need to perform before they’re actually able to count those ballots.”
Those checks incudes the need to confirm a voter’s identity and eligibility, like is done at an in-person polling booth. Those counting mail-in ballots will also have to check for damage to the ballot before it can be inserted into a scanner and counted.
Michigan was proactive in changing its state law that allows it, like most states, to process mail-in ballots before Election Day. That is still not the case in Pennsylvania and Nevada, however, and delays should be expected.
Arizona’s state law allows for mail-in votes to be processed before Election Day, but it has especially long ballots this election that are expected to slow things down. The Washington Post reports that ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous, are two pages long this year, which will require vote tabulators to unfold and feed twice as many pages into voting machines, which is more laborious and could lead to an increase in paper jams.
In Nevada, mail ballots without a postmark that arrive by Friday are counted and those with a postmark are allowed to arrive by Saturday and still count. That’s starkly different than most states, which require mail-in ballots to arrive by Election Day, and could cause major delays should the election be as close as polling suggests.
Dangers of a Drawn-Out Election Count
Tisler said this waiting game could turn dangerous if either side—whether it be voters, partisan media, the candidates, or their proxies—try to fill that “information vacuum by pushing false claims” or declaring victory prematurely.
“Everyone is really desperate to learn anything more about something that they are deeply passionate about,” he said. “But the problem is, until those votes are actually counted, there’s really no new information to provide to these people...I encourage everyone to have patience. And again, understand the reason we’re waiting for results is because election processes are designed to prioritize accuracy and security.
