Election officials in some of the closest contests in the nation are cautioning voters once more that results may not be announced as soon as anticipated.
The warnings are being issued as worries about potential violence or intimidation against poll workers due to false information shared by those who support President Donald Trump's debunked claims about the American election process grow.
Given what happened in 2020, we would be fools if we didn't consider what would occur when we publish preliminary results, said Republican Stephen Richer, Maricopa County's chief election officer. He has fought with election skeptics in his state. "And we've taken precautions against that,"
Election officials are already alerting voters and the news media that it is possible. In some cases likely, that conclusive election results won't be available on the night of the election in an effort to prevent conflicts.
Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania's interim secretary of the state, told reporters last week: "I'd like to warn everyone — voters, candidates, members of the media, and the general public — that we will not have unofficial results in every race on election night. The election results will take several days, in the end.
Other crucial battleground states' officials have echoed that message. Don't expect election results on election night, for instance, according to an email from the Michigan secretary of state with the subject line "important information to communicate with your community." Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state for Michigan, told reporters on Thursday to expect preliminary results 24 hours after polls close.
Other crucial battleground states' officials have echoed that message. Don't expect election results on election night, for instance, according to an email from the Michigan secretary of state with the subject line "important information to communicate with your community." Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state for Michigan, told reporters on Thursday to expect preliminary results 24 hours after polls close.
Determinations made by legislators in those states are to blame for some of the delays. Election officials cannot get a head start on the laborious process of taking ballots out of envelopes, authenticating them, and getting them ready for tabulation since Pennsylvania and Michigan either don't allow it or allow it with very strict restrictions.
At her news conference, Chapman stated, "I'm really trying to do my best to make sure that I'm creating and managing expectations around when the results will happen.
Mail-in ballots cannot be preprocessed in Pennsylvania. This year, Michigan lawmakers permitted two days of restricted preparation, but the agreement was made so late in the year that only a small number of the state's counties intend to use it this year.
It also matters when states require election officials to hold mail-in ballots. Regardless of when they were mailed in, most of the states with significant statewide contests this year mandate that ballots be in the hands of election authorities by the time polls close. However, California, for instance, allows ballots with a postmark from the U.S. Postal Service by election day but are received by authorities subsequently to be counted. As a result, some competitive House contests in the state could remain in doubt for a considerable amount of time.
If the races are even remotely close, the wait for results may extend long until Election Day in states like Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada that do permit ballot preprocessing. Close elections can frequently frustrate voters' insatiable demand for nearly immediate results, even in states that are frequently regarded as the gold standard of swift ballot tabulation — like Florida, which drastically overhauled its election processing rules in the wake of its vote-counting fiasco in the 2000 presidential election.
If the races are even remotely close, the wait for results may extend long until Election Day in states like Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada that do permit ballot preprocessing. Close elections can frequently frustrate voters' insatiable demand for nearly immediate results, even in states that are frequently regarded as the gold standard of swift ballot tabulation — like Florida, which drastically overhauled its election processing rules in the wake of its vote-counting fiasco in the 2000 presidential election.
The Florida Association of Election Officials' past president and Hillsborough County's election supervisor, Craig Latimer, remarked that the state experienced a number of significant recounts in 2018. Because the margins were so close, media sources were unable to announce a clear winner even in a state with a large window for analyzing votes. Additionally, more races are determined by small margins because of how evenly split and polarised the country is.
Election authorities are growing more concerned that malicious actors are using the delay in results to spread false information, just as Trump and his allies did so drastically after the 2020 election.
"The longer it takes to count those mail-in ballots, the more opportunity there is for misinformation, to cast doubt on the results before all the votes are counted," said Al Schmidt, a former top Republican elections official in Philadelphia who is currently the head of the civic organization Committee of 70. He and others have really taken advantage of the gap between what voters are used to and how voting actually works now.
Election officials frequently express frustration over false information surrounding the vote count, claiming that despite their best efforts, some voters will simply not listen. Richer, the Maricopa official, noted that in his state, the later counted votes were more favorable to Trump and other Republicans than Democrats, so screams of "stop the count" from Trump fans outside of tabulation centers in 2020 didn't even make sense.
On Tuesday, election night, Maricopa County "looked like a massive blue wave," he remarked. "Keep counting, please! should have been the chant," Please continue counting! Tell us what we can get you, please! Do you need any coffee? Is there a need for donuts?
Election officials worry that misinformation might also lead to violence or intimidation tactics, either directed toward voters during the voting process or, perhaps more seriously, toward election officials and poll workers in the aftermath. This fear goes beyond the constant irritation and occasional amusement that misinformation causes.
According to several election officials who contacted POLITICO, they have not yet detected any indications of widespread threats against voters or polling facilities. They also noted that early voting proceeded quite smoothly throughout the county. But many voiced worries about the circumstance in Arizona, where a group of Trump supporters had been manning polling places and screaming at citizens while armed. (In an ongoing lawsuit, a court earlier this month ordered the group to stop carrying guns in plain view and to stand farther away from the drop boxes.)
In Florida, there is no open carry, which Latimer expressed his gratitude for as both a former law enforcement officer and a current elected official. Therefore, some of the issues that are happening around the nation are not visible to us.
On election night, when officials complain that the results have never been official, media sources fill the hole by predicting winners and losers based on unofficial results, as well as exit polls, previous voter trends, and other information. Typically, days or even weeks after the election, the actual official election results—those that formally send candidates to the halls of Congress or the statehouse—are declared.
However, they concede that after years in which that was typically the case, Americans—both normal voters and the media—still expect to know the results on election night.
The possibility of violence or threats against election officials or rank-and-file workers during the tabulation process also caused fear among many, particularly during the interim between the closing of the polls and the declaration of the election's results.
Neal Kelley, a former voter registrar in Orange County, California, said he was "absolutely" more worried about threats and violence that would occur after the election than during it. Currently, Schmidt and Latimer are members of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, a group of election professionals and law enforcement officials working to forge relationships between the two communities. Kelley serves as its chair.
The early voting period is underway around the nation, and things are mostly quiet. He remarked last week that there are isolated problems here and there. "However, I believe that what needs to be observed is how election night turns out. What happens after the election, then?
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