With Deluge Of Mail Ballots, Here’s When To Expect Election Results In 6 Key States

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Election workers sort ballots at the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Phoenix.





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Arizona

State law in Arizona allows election officials to count mail votes up to two weeks before Election Day, so most ballots received by this weekend will already be counted in advance. Those tallies can be released starting around 10 p.m. ET on election night, along with early vote results. Votes cast at polling places on Election Day will follow shortly afterward.

The pre-counted absentee ballots and in-person votes will make up the bulk of votes cast in Arizona, so it’s possible a winner there could be declared on election night.

Absentee ballots sent right before the election, however, may not be tallied until Thursday or Friday, so if the race is close, it could remain undecided late into next week.

In Arizona, as well as elsewhere where mail votes can be counted ahead of Election Day, early tallies may show a lead for Joe Biden. But the results could begin to swing back toward President Trump when in-person votes are factored in later in the evening. For good measure, that could all shift again as the last remaining mail ballots trickle in.





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Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Christina White examines signatures on vote-by-mail ballots with members of the Canvassing Board.





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An election worker organizes absentee ballots ahead of Election Day at the city clerk office in Warren, Mich.





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An election official gathers mail-in ballots being sorted in Chester County, Pennsylvania.





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An election official gathers mail-in ballots being sorted in Chester County, Pennsylvania.


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Erie County, which swung from Obama to Trump in 2016, will begin processing absentee ballots on Election Day, but will wait to count them until about 11 p.m., after in-person ballots are counted.

In Luzerne County, home to Wilkes-Barre, County Manager David Pedri told NPR the county is hoping to count a large portion of the mail ballots on Tuesday night, but won’t finish until Wednesday or Thursday. He said he has 40 people working from 7 a.m. until 9 or 10 p.m. processing and later counting ballots. Keeping them on the clock much longer can result in mistakes being made, said Pedri.

During the primary, Pedri says it took four days to count 40,000 mail ballots. They’ve since added an envelope opening machine that should speed the process, but this fall, Luzerne has sent out 70,000 mail ballots — a third of the electorate.

In Bucks County, outside Philadelphia, Commissioner Robert Harvie told NPR that officials will begin announcing batches of results from in-person and mail voting at 10 p.m. on election night. He says it’s hard to know how long it will take to finish because they don’t know how many absentee ballots will be returned still, but he’s confident they will be done «before Friday.

If the 2020 election comes down to Pennsylvania, and the margin is tight, it is possible the election hangs in the balance for several days.

Wisconsin

«I believe that we will be able to know the results of the Wisconsin election, hopefully that night and maybe at the latest the very next day, Gov. Tony Evers said earlier this month.

Wisconsin cannot begin the bulk of its processing work until Election Day, but most counties say they expect to finish counting before Wednesday morning.

Julietta Henry, the Milwaukee County elections director, said she expects the county will finish reporting absentee ballots between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Wednesday.

«If it takes longer than that, we just ask that you be patient because we want to make sure every vote is counted and is counted accurately, she says. «We’ll be here ’til it’s done.

State law says the count cannot be paused once it begins, so election workers may end up working through the night, though the elections commission has expressed some leniency on that front.

«There are certainly smaller cities and towns where the results will come in like normal, said Reid Magney, public information officer for the Wisconsin Elections Commission. «But in some bigger cities, especially where they count absentee ballots at a central location instead of the polling place, we might not see all the results until the next morning.