November 5, 2024
This is going to come down to the swing states.
When will we know whether Trump or Harris is the projected winner of this election?
I have no idea. But what we do know is — it’s going to come down to seven swing states.
And the thing is – the laws in those swing states are wildly different and that’s what will determine when we get results. Overall North Carolina and Georgia results may come in relatively quickly and probably Michigan too. But results in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada take a while.
As I told you in this video laws in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do not allow elections officials to even touch mail in or absentee ballots until election day. And those take longer to count because elections officials have to go through what’s called processing or canvassing. That’s where elections officials match signatures, verify registrations, open the envelope, and flatten the ballot out. And all that has to happen before they can count the ballots. And that’s on top of counting the millions of votes that are cast on election day in that state. That puts the vote counting efforts behind the 8 ball. In 2020, because of these laws, that state wasn’t called until four days after the election. And in Wisconsin a projection couldn’t be made until the next day. Which we are expecting again this year.
Arizona could be difficult for several reasons too. On the plus side – Arizona law does allow elections officials to process and count mail in and absentee ballots the second they’re received which you’d think would speed up the process. But folks in Arizona like to drop their mail in ballot off on election day which means that processing and counting has to happen on top of all the other in person election day votes that need to be counted. On top of that — this year Arizona’s ballot is super long with multiple races and ballot measures on multiple pages which elections officials fear will also slow down the counting. Elections officials in that state fear that the count could take 10 to 13 days to finish. Let’s hope not.
In Nevada state law says all active registered voters will receive a mail ballot – so this is a mainly mail vote state and the good news is those mail in votes can be processed before election day. The issue is — the law also says if ..a.. Mail in ballot is postmarked by election day but not received until four days after the election – that vote still counts. In 2020 like Pennsylvania, Nevada’s race wasn’t called until four days after the election.
North Carolina and Georgia have a track record for counting votes relatively quickly. State laws allow for elections officials in these states to process mail in and absentee ballots before election day. So those usually come out really quickly after the polls close. There is some concern though because of the damage from hurricane Helene – some results in North Carolina may be slightly delayed but hopefully not by much.
Lastly in 2022 voters in Michigan changed their laws to add more days to in person voting and now allow their elections officials to process mail in and absentee ballots before election day. And that will also speed up their results. Michigan’s secretary of state believes because of these changes, they will have results by no later than 8 pm the day after election day. Possibly before.
