WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Early voting results in U.S. battleground states may not be a good indicator of whether Democratic candidate Kamala Harris or Republican rival Donald Trump will win, experts say, thanks to vote-counting rules and quirks in several key states .
In the 2020 election, some states showed a “red mirage,” in which Trump led on election night, before a “blue shift” saw Democrat Joe Biden overtake him as mail-in ballots favored by more were counted democratic voters.
Experts had accurately predicted this would happen, but Trump still used the shift to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen.
It could happen again this week, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The opposite — a “blue mirage” that apparently shows a strong outcome for Harris, only for a “red shift” to reverse the trend — could also happen this week, especially in North Carolina and Georgia.
Trump’s campaign team has said he plans to declare victory if his team believes he has surpassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the election. That could be premature, depending on how many votes remain to be counted and where they come from.
How it all plays out will depend on how and when the large numbers of mail-in or early ballots are processed and counted in different states.
Another factor is that Democrats tend to live in densely populated urban areas, where vote counting takes longer.
There are seven battleground states that will likely decide the election, each with its own rules for processing and counting ballots. Here’s what to expect on Election Day and beyond:
PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania had no clear winner four days after Election Day in 2020 as officials sifted through a huge backlog of ballots.
The state is among just a handful that do not allow election workers to process mail-in ballots or tabulate them until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day, meaning it will likely again take days before results are known.
With more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail, early results — based on in-person voting on Election Day — are likely to give Trump a lead, but his lead is likely to shrink as more mail-in ballots are counted.
That pattern in 2020 prompted Trump to falsely claim fraud. This year, a new law requires most counties to announce at midnight on election night how many ballots remain to be counted, in an effort to prevent conspiracy theories.
WISCONSIN
Like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin does not allow election officials to process or count mail-in ballots until the morning of the election, meaning there could be a delay in reporting the results of those early votes.
In addition, many of the state’s largest cities transport mail-in ballots to a centralized location for processing and tabulation. This could result in significant amounts of votes being reported at once in the early morning of Wednesday.
In 2020, Trump and his allies falsely claimed fraud after Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, reported nearly 170,000 absentee ballots around 3:30 a.m. CT (08:30 GMT), giving Biden a huge spike that put him in the lead for the first time .
That increase was expected because of the way the city processes those ballots and the fact that Democrats were increasingly voting by mail. A similar pattern is likely in 2024.
GEORGIA
Early in-person voting is popular in Georgia, where officials expected 65% to 70% of votes to be cast at early voting locations.
Absentee or mail-in ballots, which can account for about 5% of votes, can be processed — including steps like verifying signatures — starting two weeks before the election, although workers must wait until Election Day before they can start counting.
State law requires all early votes – in-person and by mail – to be counted and reported by 8:00 PM ET (00:00 GMT) on election night. Officials aim to have all votes, including those from Election Day, counted by midnight.
Ballots from overseas and military voters will be accepted up to three days after the election if postmarked by November 5.
More than 21,000 such ballots had been requested, so an extremely close election would not be resolved until those votes were tabulated.
ARIZONA
Voting by mail is extremely popular in Arizona; nearly 90% of voters cast early ballots in 2020, most by mail. Election officials in Arizona can begin processing and tabulating ballots upon receipt, but results cannot be released until an hour after polls close.
Ballots dropped off on Election Day itself cannot be processed until the polling stations have closed. That’s often a significant number — in 2022, those “late early” votes made up a fifth of all ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s largest — and can take days to count.
Early results on election night should be mostly early votes, which could favor Harris, before the numbers shift toward Trump as votes are counted on Election Day. They could move back toward Harris in the coming days as late-arriving ballots are tabulated.
MICHIGAN
Since the 2020 election, Michigan has introduced in-person voting for the first time and has begun allowing jurisdictions with more than 5,000 people to begin processing and tabulating ballots eight days before Election Day.
Smaller jurisdictions can do this the day before November 5.
Officials hope these changes will allow the state to report results more quickly than in 2020, when ballots could not be pre-processed.
That created a “red mirage” on election night, when the first election day vote counts were in Trump’s favor. Biden ultimately surpassed Trump thanks to mail-in ballots, which took longer to vote. Trump falsely claimed he was the victim of fraud.
NORTH CAROLINA
Election officials begin processing and scanning ballots before Election Day. After the polls close, the first reported results will likely be mostly mail-in ballots, as well as early in-person votes.
Election Day votes will be counted and reported throughout the evening, with full results expected by midnight.
Harris may appear to take an early lead thanks to mail-in ballots, while Trump could close the gap as votes are counted on Election Day.
If the election is as close as polls suggest, the outcome in North Carolina could remain unclear for a week or more. Ballots received on November 5, as well as ballots from overseas and military voters, will be counted during the 10-day election period following Election Day.
In 2020, the media didn’t call North Carolina for Trump until November 13, ten days after the election.
NEVADA
Nevada’s slow vote counting in 2020 — news outlets didn’t call the state for Biden until five days after Election Day — launched countless memes, but officials say changes since then should speed up the process.
Most notably, counties were allowed to begin processing and counting ballots on October 21.
Additionally, workers can start counting early in-person votes at 8 a.m. PT (3 p.m. GMT) on Election Day, instead of waiting until the polls close.
But Nevada still might not get the call anytime soon. Voting by mail has become popular in the state, and it is the only battleground that accepts late-arriving ballots.
Any ballot postmarked by November 5 will still be counted if it arrives within four days. These late votes have historically favored Democrats, so there could be a shift toward Harris as votes are counted after Election Day.
(Reporting by Washington Newsroom; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
