Will this year’s vote count also lead to chaos?

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veryone would love to know who will win the presidential election. Considering how tight the polls are, with swing states seesawing every day, venturing into a prediction would be premature.

The second mystery, essential for election integrity, is when we will know who won.

In 2020, leading news agencies needed four days after polls closed to declare Joe Biden the winner, as several states took their sweet time to count ballots from 46 percent of the voters nationwide who voted early by mail or absentee ballot. Some experts say the percentage of early voters should rise this year as more Republicans get with the program. Others contend early voting will drop because there’s no Covid pandemic to deter people from voting in person on November 5.

The controversy in 2020 started because the early ballots were counted last. The majority came from Democratic strongholds and reversed Donald Trump’s election night lead, opening the door for him to cry foul.

Will this year’s vote count also lead to chaos?

The cynical view comes from David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who told Axios, “It is a near guarantee that Donald Trump will declare victory the night of November 5, and it won’t matter whether he’s accurate and he actually won, or whether he was defeated soundly.”

Others contend that the vote count will come in too fast and furious for anyone to jump the gun.

Brandon Finnigan, director of elections for Decision Desk HQ — the first news agency that called Biden the winner in 2020 — contends that by 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on election night, same-day voting results should be rolling in from more than half the states. Vote counts should be close to final in Kentucky and Indiana, where the polls close earliest, Florida should be winding down its count, and a majority of precincts in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Greater Atlanta will have tabulated and reported the lion’s share of their early and absentee vote.

With that much of the vote in, we will see the first reliable indications of how the actual vote compared to the pollsters’ predictions.

“It will by no means be a perfect real-time comparison,” Finnigan said. “But with a sizable portion of America’s counties reporting, the polls will start looking either pretty spot on or (once again) several clicks off. This doesn’t mean we will know, with certainty, who is winning by this time… but at least we will know if the polls this time were more accurate.”

Counting Votes, Not Sheep

Since the 2020 controversy, where the Trump campaign filed 62 lawsuits in nine states challenging their results, many states have passed new laws or changed procedures to hasten the vote count without sacrificing accuracy.

Georgia will require counties to tally votes nonstop until 5 p.m. the day after the election instead of calling it a night around 11 p.m. as they did in 2020. Most of Greater Atlanta will have reported its in-person early vote and a sizable chunk of its absentee ballots by 9:30.

In Michigan, the legislature passed new rules to allow officials to begin counting absentee ballots up to eight days before the election. Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township — Michigan’s second largest township and also a Detroit suburb —told Axios he expects that 90 percent of absentee ballots will be counted before Election Day, with final, unofficial results a few hours after the polls close.

“I don’t envision a world where we don’t know who won Michigan by midnight,” Siegrist said.

Nevada will start counting early ballots as soon as the polls open on Election Day rather than waiting until the polls close.

However, even though Arizona has hired more vote counters since 2020, it still took them a week to announce the results of the 2022 gubernatorial election.

Another key swing state, Wisconsin, failed to make significant reforms, and in hotly contested Pennsylvania, vote counters must still wait until the morning of Election Day to unseal early ballots to check if they came from valid voters. As a result, some county officials warn that it may take several days for Pennsylvania to complete its tally.

Brandon Finnigan of Decision Desk HQ agrees that not all of Pennsylvania’s absentee votes will be tallied by 9:30 p.m., but based on Pennsylvania’s speed in reporting half of the total vote in this April’s Democratic presidential primary by 9:15 p.m., he is confident we will see a repeat performance in November.

Protecting the Counters

Despite the many states that have passed reforms and instituted improvements, new and unanticipated problems may crop up this time around to give sleepless nights to Americans who would like to know the name of the next president before they go to sleep.

Fear of violence aimed at vote counters is palpable.

The Brennan Center for Justice’s annual survey of local election officials released in May found that 38% have experienced threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs, and more than 60% said they worry about politicians who will attempt to interfere with elections.

Election workers in Arizona have conducted active shooter drills and will be counting ballots behind barricaded doors.

Fearing the worst-case scenario, poll workers in Michigan and Georgia will have “panic buttons” to text 911 or contact local election officials and law enforcement officers to report any dangerous situations at a voting or vote-counting location.

Even if the night passes without violent incidents, will people still be able to trust the vote count?

Morning Consult conducted a survey a year ago for the Washington-based Public Affairs Council, showing that just 37% of Americans believe the 2024 elections will be “honest and open,” while 43% have serious doubts about their honesty, openness, or both.

That sentiment explains why Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who was asked by Donald Trump in 2020 to find 12,000 more Republican votes to help him overcome Biden’s lead in that state, told Axios that it’s crucial that this year’s tally be rapid and beyond reproach.

“Quick results give voters confidence,” Raffensperger said. “Confidence builds trust, and trust is society’s gold standard, particularly when our society is so polarized.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1030)