Why we may not know the winner of the US presidential election on November 5

The US presidential election will be held on November 5, but the winner of the razor-thin race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump may not be known until days after the polls close.

When ballots are counted, one candidate may be in the lead based on early results, but a rival will close the gap as more votes are counted.

In 2020, some states experienced a “red mirage” where Trump appeared to be leading on election night before a “blue shift” saw him overtaken by Democrat Joe Biden – a phenomenon Trump used to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen. .

Nothing untoward happened. Democrats tend to live in more densely populated urban areas where votes take longer to count. Democrats have also been more willing than Republicans to support mail-in voting, following Trump’s false claims that mail-in ballots are unreliable and those ballots take longer to count than votes on Election Day. Trump has both encouraged and criticized early voting and mail-in voting in 2024.

This year, Democrats are again ahead of Republicans in the number of mail-in ballots, according to early vote tracker data maintained by the University of Florida Elections Lab, although Republicans have narrowed the gap.

There are seven swing states that are likely to decide the election, each with its own rules for processing and counting ballots. Here’s what to expect on Election Day and beyond:

Voting by mail is extremely popular in Arizona; In 2020, nearly 90% of voters voted early, mostly by mail. Election officials in Arizona can begin processing and tabulating mail ballots as soon as they are received, but results cannot be released until an hour after polls close.

Any ballots mailed in on Election Day cannot be processed until polls close. This is often a significant number—in 2022, these “late early” votes accounted for one-fifth of all ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s largest—and can take days to count.

Initial results on Election Night should consist mostly of early votes that could end up in Harris’ favor before the numbers shift toward Trump as votes are counted on Election Day.

Early in-person voting is popular in Georgia, where officials expect 65% to 70% of ballots will be cast at early polling places. Absentee or mail ballots, which can account for about 5% of the vote, can be processed, including steps such as signature verification, starting two weeks before the election, although workers will have to wait until Election Day to begin counting them.

All early votes – in person and by mail – must be counted and reported by 8:00 pm ET (00:00 GMT) on election night, according to state law, which could initially create a “blue mirage” in Harris’ favor. Officials aim to count all votes, including on Election Day, by midnight.

Ballots from overseas and military voters will be accepted up to three days after the election if postmarked by Nov. 5. More than 21,000 such ballots have been requested, so the extremely close election may not be resolved until those votes are tallied.

Following the 2020 election, Michigan introduced early in-person voting for the first time and began allowing jurisdictions with populations over 5,000 to begin processing and tabulating mail ballots eight days before Election Day. Smaller jurisdictions may do this ahead of November 5th.

Officials hope the changes will allow the state to report results more quickly than in 2020, when mail-in ballots could not be processed in advance. This created a “red mirage” on election night when the state’s preliminary Election Day vote count favored Trump. Biden ultimately outscored Trump in the number of mail-in ballots that took longer to count. Trump falsely claimed he was the victim of fraud.

Nevada’s slow vote count in 2020 (news outlets didn’t call for the state to back Biden until five days after Election Day) spawned countless memes, but officials say changes since then should speed up the process.

Specifically, on October 21, counties were allowed to begin processing and counting mail-in ballots. Additionally, workers can begin counting early in-person votes at 8 a.m. PT (1500 GMT) on Election Day instead of waiting until polls close.

But Nevada still may not get the call right away. Voting by mail has become popular in the state, and it is the only battleground that accepts late mail ballots. This could also lead to a “blue shift” as more votes are counted.

Any ballot postmarked before Nov. 5 will still be counted as long as it arrives within four days. These late elections historically favor Democrats, so a shift toward Harris could occur as votes are counted after Election Day.

Election officials begin processing and scanning mail ballots ahead of Election Day. After polls close, the first results reported will likely be mail-in ballots as well as early in-person voting. Election Day votes will be counted and reported throughout the evening, with full results expected by midnight.

Harris could appear to be leading early thanks to mail-in ballots, while Trump could close the gap as votes are counted on Election Day.

If the election is as close as polls suggest, the result in North Carolina could remain unclear for a week or more. Absentee ballots received on November 5, as well as ballots from overseas and military voters, are counted during the 10-day voting period following Election Day. In 2020, the media didn’t call North Carolina Trump until November 13, 10 days after the election.

Perhaps the most important battleground was that Pennsylvania in 2020 had no clear winner until four days after Election Day as officials sifted through massive numbers of mail ballots. The state is among the few that do not allow election workers to process or tabulate mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day, meaning it will likely again be several days before the result is known.

With more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail, early results – based on in-person voting on Election Day – will likely show Trump with an advantage, but his lead is likely to shrink as more mail ballots are counted.

This pattern in 2020 prompted Trump to falsely claim fraud. This year, a new law requires most counties to announce at midnight on Election Night how many mail ballots remain to be counted, to prevent conspiracy theories.

Like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin is among the few states that do not allow election officials to process or count mail ballots until the morning of Election Day, meaning there could be a delay in reporting early voting results.

In addition, many of the state’s largest cities deliver mail-in ballots to a central location for processing and tabulation. This could result in significant amounts of votes being reported early in the morning after polls close.

In 2020, Trump and his allies falsely claimed fraud after Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, reported nearly 170,000 absentee ballots around 3:30 a.m. Central Time (0830 GMT), giving Biden a huge surge. which put him in the lead for the first time. But the increase was expected because of how the city processes those ballots and because Democrats were more likely to vote by mail. A similar picture is likely in 2024.