Oct.14

electoral-vote.com

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Will We Know the Winner on Nov. 5? Don't Count on It

Many people have already voted but, due to various state laws, we are unlikely to know the winner of the presidential election on Nov. 5. Maybe not even on Nov. 6 if it really is as close as the polls say it is. Much of the problem is due to Republican-controlled state legislatures that want the election to devolve into chaos to provide cover for Donald Trump if he tries to claim victory on Nov. 5 and is then ultimately defeated. The biggest issue is whether absentee ballots can be pre-processed or even fully processed before Election Day. If the process of verifying the signatures on the envelopes may not begin before 7 a.m. on Election Day, there is no conceivable way they can all be verified, the envelopes opened, and the ballots taken out, prepped, and scanned by midnight. Here is the lay of the land by (swing) state:

• Arizona: Although Arizona is in the Mountain Time Zone, its results may be available long before some of the swing states in the Eastern Time Zone because Arizona law allows processing of all ballots as soon as they are received and they can be counted as soon as they have been processed. The results may not be released until the polls close, though. If a large number of ballots are dropped off in person on Election Day, that could slow the process down.
  
  
• Georgia: Not as good as Arizona, but still pretty good. Signatures are verified as the absentee ballots come in, but opening the envelopes may not begin until the third Monday before Election Day. That is to say, Oct. 21. This means that all the absentee ballots arriving before Election Day will be counted before Election Day. Polls close early (7 p.m.) on Election Day. The combination of precounting the absentee ballots and an early closing time in the Eastern Time Zone means that Georgia will probably be the first swing state to report a winner. If it is a blowout either way, that could set the tone for the rest of the night.
  
  
• Michigan: In Michigan, in all but the smallest jurisdictions, ballots can be preprocessed and counted starting 8 days before the election. Since polls close at 8 p.m., an hour later than Georgia, most likely Georgia will report first, but Michigan will probably be the second swing state to report. If the same candidate wins both of them, that candidate will probably be in for a good night. However, a Harris (Michigan)/Trump (Georgia) split is probably more likely.
  
  
• Nevada: Signature verification can begin as soon as ballots are received and counting can begin 15 days before the election, so absentee ballots will largely be counted before Election Day, as in Arizona. But since Nevada, unlike Arizona, is an all-mail-in-election state, its results might be available even before Arizona's. That said, the Silver State is one time zone west of Arizona, and no state can release results until the polls are closed, so maybe not.
  
  
• North Carolina: Oh boy. Hurricane Helene battered the western portion of the state, so the U.S. Supreme Court gets to call the winner. Not officially (yet), but there are sure to be endless lawsuits due to the difficulty in voting for people in the 25 affected counties. Other than that, the state isn't so bad. Absentee ballots may be verified and put into the tabulating machines 5 weeks before Election Day. Polls close later than in Georgia (7:30 p.m.) but the big problem here is going to be the western part of the state. Still, fairly early on, there will be a big clue how things are going because the biggest cities (Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, and Winston-Salem) were not hit by the hurricane and it will be possible to compare their vote totals with 2020. Harris must surge here to win the state and the presence or absence of a surge will be known before the western counties report.
  
  
• Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania introduced early in-person voting only in 2020, so there is not much experience with it. Unfortunately, early in-person ballots are considered absentee ballots, and these may not be counted until 7 a.m. on Election Day. At least there is no need to verify signatures and open envelopes for the early votes. Still, in a large state that may determine the winner, and where every vote may count, it could take a couple of days to count all the ballots, unless there is an unexpected blowout.
  
  
• Wisconsin: As we note above, Wisconsin was the third closest state in 2020 (after Georgia and Arizona). Like Pennsylvania, preprocessing of the ballots may not begin in Wisconsin until the polls open on Election Day. If everything ends up depending on Wisconsin, we likely won't know for a while who won the Badger State. Wisconsin election officials have begged the state legislature to change the law so they can at least pre-process the ballots and have them stacked up, ready to put in the counting machines at 7 a.m. on Election Day, but Republicans in the legislature have no interest in doing so.
  

The bottom line here is that Georgia will probably come in first, then Michigan, then the eastern part of North Carolina. If there is a huge blue wave, it will show up in the big cities there and that will be a big clue how the state will go. If there is no blue wave, that will also be obvious fairly early.

If you want to know how ballot processing works in all 50 states, this page from the National Conference of State Legislatures has the full story. Poll closing times are here. (V)