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Why does it take so long to count votes in some states?

FILE - Election officials huddle around a table as absentee ballots are processed at the central counting board, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Detroit.
Carlos Osorio
/
AP Photo
FILE - Election officials huddle around a table as absentee ballots are processed at the central counting board, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Detroit.

Voters can expect to be in suspense in several swing states that will determine who wins the White House

One of the hallmarks of American elections is that there’s a lot of waiting. The 2020 presidential contest, for example, wasn’t called until four days after the election. As we look ahead to the 2024 election, we can expect some more waiting on election night.

There’s no national body that administers the election. So every state plus the District of Columbia gets to decide how they run their elections, and they all do things a little differently.

As people watch the results on election night, it’s important to understand that these rules can mean different candidates take the lead at different times — and that tabulating final results can take days and even weeks.

Voters can expect to be in suspense in several swing states that will determine who wins the White House.

In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for instance, mail ballots are not opened until Election Day, which extends the vote counting process.

Most states with mail voting allow ballots to be opened several days before Election Day and tallied ahead of time. That's why some states with a lot of mail ballots, like Georgia, report their results faster.

Other states that rely heavily on mail can take longer, however.

In Arizona, voters can drop off a mail ballot as late as at the time polls close on Election Day. And a recent law in Nevada allows ballots that are mailed on Election Day and arrive a couple of days later to be counted.

In recent elections, misinformation has spread in places where election officials have taken days to release a complete ballot count. Experts and election officials say state laws are a factor and that time and labor are necessary to process and correctly tabulate ballots.

Here's a closer look at the process in Michigan:

A new law gives local elections officials more time to process and tabulate mail ballots, which should help alleviate the logjam that slowed ballot counting in the 2020 presidential election.

Cities and towns with at least 5,000 people may begin processing and tabulating ballots up to eight days before Election Day, while smaller jurisdictions may begin the morning before Election Day.

In 2020, more than 3.1 million voters cast their ballots by mail, about 56% of all ballots cast. State law at the time prevented election workers from opening the envelopes and preparing ballots for the count until the night before Election Day. Trump took an early lead in the vote count on election night, but that lead began to erode overnight and early Wednesday morning and Biden took the lead later that afternoon.

The law change may result in a speedier release of mail voting totals and may mitigate the so-called “red mirage” that Trump falsely claimed was evidence of voter fraud in Michigan and in a handful of other key states.

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