Don't expect to know the election winners on Tuesday night

It’s very unlikely that Americans will know the outcome of this year’s presidential race on Nov. 5, Election Day. It could take days, even weeks, after polls close before the results become clear. The same is true for control of the U.S. House and Senate and for other close contests.

The reasons are mostly procedural. Accurate vote counting takes time, especially when it involves millions of mail ballots. Legal challenges, audits and recounts can also extend the period needed to determine the outcome.

Election officials caution Americans to be patient. They say what might look like delays are part of the normal process and not a sign of something nefarious. They warn that simply because a candidate declares victory does not make it true.

Wisconsin Election Commission Chair Ann Jacobs states, "Here’s the Wisconsin wrinkle: Some communities use a “central count” location to tally their absentee ballots. That is where ALL absentee ballots for the municipality are taken to one location where they are all tallied (rather than being tallied at the poll sites). Under WI law, they CANNOT start processing those ballots until the polls open at 7 am on Election Day. In fact, they cannot even open the envelopes until then. (There was proposed legislation letting this begin the Monday before the election but it didn’t get passed). AND - most importantly - those central count locations cannot report their results until ALL ballots have been tallied. Quite simply, this is a complicated process that takes until very late on Election Day, or more commonly, the early hours the day after." As of today, over 1.3 million votes have been cast in advance of the election day.

In 2020, it was four days after Election Day before Joe Biden was declared the winner. Even those results were unofficial, based on the projections of multiple news organizations.

But that period of uncertainty, and public confusion, opened the way for unfounded allegations of fraud.  Former President Trump and his allies used what appeared to be late “changes’ in the vote count to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election.

Trump even demanded that the counting be stopped hours after the polls closed, falsely accusing Democrats of “finding” ballots to manipulate the outcome.

“We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list,” he said. “To me, this is a very sad moment, and we will win this, and as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it.”

But what Trump and his allies were denouncing was the normal vote-counting process.  Officials had warned repeatedly that the count would take time, especially with the expanded use of mail balloting by Democrats during the pandemic. That created what was became known as a ‘red mirage” on Election Day, something that quickly disappeared once all the votes were tallied.

Election experts warn the same thing could happen again this year.

Ballots cast by voters on Election Day are tabulated relatively quickly, usually by machine, but even those results need to be double-checked.

Mail ballots can take longer to count. Each ballot must be reviewed for accuracy and to ensure that it comes from a legitimate voter.  The process of removing the ballot from the envelope and preparing it to be counted, either by hand or machine, also takes time.

Some states prohibit officials from beginning this process before Election Day, all but guaranteeing that the count will be extended. That is the case this year in two battleground states, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 

All early votes in Wisconsin (in-person and absentee votes) are removed from the envelope and run through the tabulating machine on election day (Wis. Stat. § 6.88). This slows down vote reporting, particularly in Milwaukee, which has in recent elections had the effect of making the votes in Wisconsin suddenly skew to the Democrats early on Wednesday morning. This is normal and expected, and not an indication of fraud as has been claimed. 

There are other factors that could lead to a longer counting period.

Most states require mail ballots to be received by Election Day.  But a few states — such as Nevada, California and Maryland — allow ballots to arrive several days after Election Day, as long they are postmarked by then.  Many states provide a similar grace period for military and overseas ballots.

In Wisconsin, mail ballots have to be received at the local election office by the time the polls close on Nov. 5 in order to count.

Voters who cast provisional ballots, often because they lack the required ID or their names are missing from the rolls, are also allowed several days after Election Day to address those problems.

In addition, some states give voters a few days to “cure” or fix errors on their mail ballots so they can be counted. In a close race, this can make a difference. In Wisconsin all ballots must be cured by 8 PM on election day.

Election experts offer another word of caution. Even when enough votes have been counted to allow media outlets to project a winner, those results are not final. They still need to be certified by election officials, a process that usually occurs several weeks after Election Day when canvassing and audits are complete.

In Wisconsin, local results must be certified by November 19 and state results must be certified by Dec. 1. 

Close races can also trigger automatic or candidate-requested recounts or attract legal challenges that can drag the contest out even further.

Election officials hope that doesn’t happen, but if it does, they say it’s all part of a system designed to produce fair and accurate results.

A final reminder from Jacobs: "if it’s a blowout for the municipalities report right after close of the polls, the election can be called early! But Wisconsin hasn’t been a blowout state. It’s been razor-thin results. So Wisconsin is likely to be late-called, not early."