(Adnkronos) – Four years ago, America and the entire world had to wait five days before the proclamation of Joe Biden’s victory, with all the consequences that followed. But this year, experts interviewed by The Hill are betting that the results could arrive faster, although most likely not on election night.
“Things could be different, I don’t want to say famous last words, but I would be surprised if the process was as long as in 2020,” says Qinn Yeargin, a professor at Michigan State University, recalling that in the 2020 election there was a record percentage of mail-in voting, due to Covid, and key states were not ready to handle it. But now these states have taken remedial action, updating and speeding up procedures for counting mail-in ballots.
Apart from the recount saga of 2000 in Florida, where George Bush’s victory was decided after weeks of legal battles by the Supreme Court, Americans usually knew the name of the new occupant of the White House on election night, or in the early hours of the next day.
But the election four years ago changed everything: 43% of voters voted by mail, compared to 20-25% in previous election cycles, based on measures that, in most states, prohibited opening and checking the validity of these votes before Election Day. Hence the huge delays in counting mail-in ballots. “The sheer volume took a significant amount of time to handle these ballots, opening the door to a proliferation of conspiracy theories,” Yeargin adds, referring to Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud.
A high percentage of mail-in voting is also expected this year, so the rules have been changed and almost all states now allow mail-in ballots to be opened and checked for validity before Election Day, explains Chris Mann, of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. The verification process includes verifying voter signatures and other information written on the envelope containing the ballot, and then preparing the ballots deemed valid to be read by voting machines.
“The most time-consuming part is verifying each ballot to make sure it’s valid and complete, with all the information to verify the voter’s identity,” Mann adds. Not only that, about half of states have enacted measures that allow the actual counting of mail-in votes by voting machines even before Election Day.
Among the key states, Michigan, Nevada – where the majority of voters vote by mail – Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina allow mail-in ballots to be processed before Election Day. However, this will not happen in Wisconsin and, more importantly, in Pennsylvania, considered the most crucial of the swing states. In these two states it will not be possible to open the envelopes containing the mail-in ballots before November 5.
