When to expect 2020 presidential election results in nine swing states

Over 93 million people have already voted ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election, but that doesn’t mean Americans should expect to hear a winner by the end of the night.

The 2020 election was upended by the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in more ballots than ever being cast by mail.

Each of the 50 states has their own set of complex election laws — many of which have been taken up in courts across the country as states grapple with a surge of mail-in-voting for the first time.

Here’s a look at when the nine battleground states — Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota — expect to be able to complete their vote counts:

Arizona

Arizona expects to have the majority of votes counted by election night, with a full result reached by the end of the week.

This is primarily because the state permits counting mail-in-ballots before Election Day if they are submitted by the weekend before the election. Counting was allowed to begin 14 days before the official election date.

While most votes should be officially processed and counted by the end of Tuesday evening, the polls closing at 9 p.m. ET, election officials won’t be able to provide a final tally for days due to last minute ballots received in the mail.

Michigan

Michigan will not have an official winner on Tuesday night. The state’s Court of Appeals reversed an earlier ruling last month allowing absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 and obtained within two weeks of Election Day to be counted.

The court ruled instead that only ballots received by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday would be permitted to be counted.

The decision was not appealed to the wolverine state’s Supreme Court.

The state is expecting to have results, albeit unofficial ones, on Friday, Michigan’s Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, told Politico of the process last month.

Pennsylvania

According to Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Secretary Kathy Boockvar, “the overwhelming majority” of ballots will be counted by Friday despite polls closing at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday.

This is thanks to the US Supreme Court’s decision late last week to allow state election officials to continue counting absentee ballots received by this Friday — three days after Election Day.

Still, the wait could go on beyond Friday, Boockvar told The Philadelphia Inquirer, mentioning at one point during an interview “by the weekend.”

Unlike some other battlegrounds, the keystone state does not allow for counting to begin prior to 7 a.m. Tuesday, also increasing the wait time. Additionally, about half of the state’s voters are expected to be voting by absentee ballot.

The final deadline to certify the election results is Nov. 23, though it is not expected to require nearly that much time.

Florida

Florida is no stranger to mail-in-voting. The sunshine state processed and counted 2.3 million mail-in-ballots in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Sun Sentinel.

This time around, smooth sailing is generally expected, with state election officials expecting to have the results reported sometime between the 8 p.m. ET poll closing time and 8:30 p.m.

“We’re in a generally better situation than some other states because we have the infrastructure in place to handle mail ballots, unlike some other states,” Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who has studied how people vote, told the Sun Sentinel.

“If the election is decisive enough, we should be able to call Florida on Election Night,” he added.

While an ETA for full results from the state have not been provided, the state appears prepared to deliver more substantial information to voters by late Tuesday.

State election officials are permitted to process and count mail-in-ballots weeks prior to Election Day. The state is also known for rejecting ballots that arrive after the actual election date.

Despite all this, some counties may need additional time to process ballots, and the state is generous with providing that to places if requested. As a result, some counties may still be counting on Wednesday.

North Carolina

Like Florida, North Carolina is also expected to deliver quick results on Election Day.

Ballots that were cast during early voting and through the mail will be reported around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday when the polls close, while Election Day results will be reported anywhere from an hour later to sometime past midnight.

One thing of note, however, is that the tar heel state allows absentee ballots to be counted that arrive as late as Nov. 12, next Thursday.

While there will still be counting until that date, it is not clear whether those votes will be enough to sway any outcome.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin election officials predict that they will deliver results from the must-win state by Wednesday morning.

The state, whose polls close at 9 p.m. ET, is following a ruling made late last month by the Supreme Court, which voted 5-to-3 to deny a lower court’s ruling which extended Wisconsin’s deadline for accepting absentee ballots.

That ruling would have allowed the badger state to accept ballots received up to six days after Tuesday’s election.

Mail ballots are also not allowed to be processed or counted until Election Day itself.

Gov. Tony Evers also expects to have a winner declared in the state by early Wednesday, saying at a press conference last month, “I believe that we will be able to know the results of the Wisconsin election, hopefully that night and maybe at the latest the very next day.

“I think we’re in a much better position to count those [absentee ballots] than we have been in the past.”

Nevada

Nevada, whose polls close at 10 p.m. ET, is a tricky state with regard to when it will know who can claim victory in the presidential race.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the state mailed a ballot to every single active registered voter for the first time in its history.

On Monday, a judge ruled against the Trump reelection campaign in their lawsuit to temporarily halt the counting of mail-in-ballots in the state.

The campaign cited concerns about fraud in a state that was mass-mailing out ballots.

The lawsuit, filed last week, was focused on Clark County, home to over 70 percent of the state’s residents. The state had begun counting absentee ballots in mid-October.

For absentee ballots to be counted in the state, they must be postmarked by election day and returned by Nov. 10.

In an email to Politico, a spokesperson for Nevada’s secretary of state said, “It is unlikely that we will have results on election night.”

New Hampshire

Many New Hampshire residents are expected to be voting in person on Tuesday, where polls close at 8 p.m. ET, as the state does not permit early voting.

With regard to absentee ballots, the state lifted some previous restrictions in order to allow voters to use coronavirus as a viable excuse to vote by mail.

The problem, according to the Center for Public Integrity, was that the state did not reprint the envelopes that were required to accompany those ballots.

Still, the state expects to have their ballots counted within a reasonable amount of time.

“It might take a little bit longer than we’re normally used to, but they will be released by the end of the night,” David Scanlan, the state’s deputy secretary of state, told the Granite State News Collaborative.

Minnesota

Minnesota, whose polls close at 9 p.m. ET, plans to report their vote tallies by noon on Wednesday at the latest, with state election officials already counting absentee ballots as they receive them.

The state’s secretary of state will report all outstanding mail ballots on their website, but the state does not expect anything in terms of delays.

With Post wires