The outcome of one of the most historic elections in the US has seen the current president drop his wish to contest the election and support one of the female candidates who has risen to the top of the Democratic seat as the Republican who lost the last election is looking at disposing of the Democratic form helm of affairs. The whole effort will end now on November 5th 2024.
The last election, which saw the emergence of the current president, Joe Biden, took four days before the final election was announced. The major reason for the delay it was noted that it was due to the mail-in voting expansions, and other changes made to help Americans participate during a global pandemic, which delayed the counting of the votes in strategic states for years.
Barry Burden, the director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earlier disclosed that counting the election may take a few days or more in the current election.
An expert who spoke to ABC News said that the tight race, which Donald Trump and Kamala Harris contest, would provide more difficulty in announcing the result of the election as the polls which have been conducted and announced have shown that the Democrats and Republicans have been neck and neck heading into the day of the election.
Each state also has its own process and rules that guide the administration of the election, including the ways in which election mail ballots are processed to cure signatures or other issues. The different processes may also hinder the declaration of the election results because of the delays in tabulating the results.
Mitchell Brown, a professor of political science at Auburn University, explained that there are a variety of things that have to be done because there are these safeguards in place to try and minimize the possibility of fraud. He also noted that in some of the states where there are different processes, it takes a lot of procedures for the compilation of the results.
In 2020, in an election that got Donald Trump Defeated before the announcement of the official result, the former president declared himself the winner of the election. The announcement had led to the spread of misinformation in the country, which spoke about the integrity of the election and the credibility of the mail votes with fingers pointed at them. a
Professor Brown also noted that if the elections were declared on election day, it does not mean that the process was corrupt.
The attention of the people will be turned to what has been seen as the decider of the election, which are the seven states which are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The victory in the states will determine if any of the candidates will win at the college.
It was also announced that in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which are part of the key states, the casting of mail or absentee ballots could not start until the morning of the election, which included opening envelopes, verifying voter information and preparing them to be scanned before they can be counted, which can lead to delays.
In 2020, Wisconsin wasn’t called for either candidate until after Election Day and Pennsylvania was called the Saturday after Election Day.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, mail or absentee ballots may be processed in other key battleground states, including Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina, but they cannot be counted until Election Day.
It was announced that in Arizona, the data have indicated that the participants in the elections in the state have relied heavily on mail voting; the officials noted that the votes that were received through mail or absentee votes could be processed before the election day once they are received. The other amount of votes that are collected on election day and dropped in the election box could not be retrieved and counted before the close of the election on the election day; the delay will also interfere with the declaration of results.
In the 2020 election, Nevada was one of the states where the presidential race wasn’t called until the Saturday after Election Day. However, the 2024 election has presented new changes that will help the quick counting of votes in the country. Some of the processes include allowing mail or absentee ballots to start being counted 15 days before Election Day.
Burden explained that It’s a product of the laws, and depending on where the Electoral College spotlight is in any given year, it can mean a faster or slower count.
In recent years, news organizations have often called a winner based on an analysis of the reported vote count; results are not official until states certify them. States have their certification deadlines, some extending into December, according to the Election Assistance Commission.
