What will happen if we don’t get results on election night?
As the polls close tonight, election results will start to flood in. However, they might be inconclusive. The COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest are among a number of factors this year that has changed the usual expectations of election night results, making any definitive and immediate declarations of winners extremely difficult, if not impossible, to provide. So what does this mean for Pennsylvania as a crucial swing state in the presidential election, and how long do voters need to wait for the results of their casted ballots?
While the results of the 2020 election will be incredibly divisive and are highly anticipated, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in obstacles that will delay conclusive electoral results, such as mail-in ballots, which have been requested by approximately 3 million of Pennsylvania’s 9 million registered voters. Technically speaking, aside from the massive increase of in mail-in ballots, partial results are expected on any election night. Despite state officials agreeing that it is going to take a while to count the ballots cast in this election, a handful of counties maintain that they will not begin counting mail-in ballots on Election Day itself. This is in large part due to Pennsylvania law that states that election workers can’t legally start pre-canvassing mail ballots– opening the envelopes, extracting the ballots, and placing them in a tabulation scanner– until 7 a.m. on the day of. This law does not apply to all states. This year, ballots are also supposed to arrive by 8 p.m. that evening to be considered valid, but courts currently permit them to be included if they arrive by 5 p.m. Friday without a clear indication of being postmarked past deadline.
In addition to mail-in ballot voting, the in-person voting results may be altered somewhat due to the pandemic. As stated by the Philadelphia Inquirer, far more Democrats (1.6 million registered voters) have requested to vote by mail than Republicans (555,805 registered voters), thus in-person voting results could skew more toward Republicans. In addition, according to Lehigh Valley Live, in Pennsylvania, results might not be officially certified until 20 days after this election, allowing time for overseas ballots to arrive and other issues to be resolved, potentially resulting in leads in tallies or specific party dominance in given areas to erode, increase, or even disappear. Hence, while the usual results from polling places may be available late on election night, significant numbers of mail-in ballots might still need to be counted. As described earlier, mail-in ballots will take time to count as some trickle in after Election Day. As the process unfolds, Pennsylvania will continually update its results website showing the kind of ballots tallied so far and how many of each are still outstanding. Media and campaign representatives will be allowed to observe counties’ ballot counts. Check back for further updates about the Pennsylvania election results.
