If you’re hoping to go to bed on Election Day knowing the outcome of the presidential race in Wisconsin, election officials have a pretty simple message: prepare to wait longer.
That’s due to Wisconsin’s increasingly thinning voting margins and the recent increase in absentee ballots. Amid national political polarization, elections in the state are tighter than ever, with the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in Wisconsin decided by less than 1% of the vote, or about 20,000 voters.
Here’s what we know about the timeline of Wisconsin election results and how long you’ll have to wait for them.
When can we expect unofficial election results in Wisconsin?
It’s important to note that any election results we see in the hours after Election Day are still technically unofficial. Certifying the official results of Wisconsin’s elections is a multi-step process that will take several weeks.
However, media outlets such as the Associated Press are often able to call elections much earlier based on unofficial voting results. The AP only calls a race when the results of the votes indicate that it is statistically impossible for anyone other than one candidate to win.
When can we expect this call in Wisconsin? In elections where there are fewer elections, such as local or provincial elections, this may be right after the polls close at 8 p.m. For tighter statewide races — including the U.S. Senate and presidential primaries — it could take much longer.
In 2020, the AP called Wisconsin for Joe Biden at 2:16 p.m. on Nov. 4, the day after Election Day — although the number of absentee ballots was particularly high that year due to the pandemic and further delayed the count. In 2016, the AP called Wisconsin for Donald Trump at 2:29 a.m. on Nov. 9, in the early morning hours after Election Day.
Given the 2016 and 2020 timelines, it is unlikely that Wisconsin will be called for Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris before midnight on Election Day. Election officials seem to agree that we will likely have to wait until very late on Election Day or into the early morning hours of November 6 for unofficial results.
More: On the first day of early voting, Wisconsin residents cast more than 97,000 votes with an ‘unprecedented turnout’
In a media briefing earlier this month, Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said some localities have taken steps, such as hiring more poll workers, to count votes more efficiently. Still, she added, accuracy takes precedence over speed when it comes to counting votes.
“Election officials are not willing to sacrifice accuracy to get results faster,” Wolfe said. “So it will take as long as it takes to get it just right, and every step of that process, every ballot that is counted, will be counted in the public eye.”
Why is it taking longer for election results to be announced in Wisconsin?
There are two main reasons Wisconsin’s recent elections have taken longer: increasing political polarization and the rise of absentee voting.
When voting margins were larger in Wisconsin, the media could “call” races for certain candidates after a smaller number of votes were reported, because they knew the remaining votes were highly unlikely to change the original outcome. Now, however, the Wisconsin election is so close that the media will have to wait until almost all election results in certain counties are reported, Ann Jacobs, chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said in a separate media briefing.
“People misunderstand past elections because they say, ‘Well, I went to bed and the election was decided,’” Jacobs said. ‘The results came in because [the media] were able to call the elections because the elections were not so close that we had to wait. That’s just not the case here in Wisconsin anymore.”
The process in Wisconsin is also being slowed because several counties, including Milwaukee, are operating a “central counting” system — where all absentee ballots are sent to a central location and cannot be counted until the polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day.
Election officials often post these absentee ballot results late at night on Election Day or early the next morning because they cannot begin counting until that morning. This means that the early election reports you see before you go to bed on Election Day can shift overnight as absentee ballots are counted in central counting counties.
Following his 2020 loss, these overnight results prompted former President Donald Trump to make false accusations of late-night “ballot deposits” from illegal votes. These claims are baseless, and in Wisconsin, local election officials are required to double-check results for counting errors or fraud.
“[Election officials] Literally look at every ballot to make sure they got everything as accurately as possible,” Sun Prairie City Clerk Elena Hilby said in the briefing.
Jacobs added that voters should ignore the “firehose of misinformation” surrounding absentee ballot reporting.
“I’m trying to tell voters that this is going to happen,” Jacobs said of the nightly coverage of absentee ballots. “It’s not a conspiracy. We know it’s going to happen because it happened in 2016, 2020, 2022.”
What is the timeline of election night events?
While we don’t know exactly when votes will be fully counted or reported, here is a timeline of election night in Wisconsin, according to the Election Commission:
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8:00 PM – Polling stations close. Deadline for returning all absentee ballots to a polling place or central counting location, as well as the deadline for clerks in central counting counties to report how many absentee ballots were issued in their locality and how many were returned.
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Immediately after the polling stations close – Election inspectors begin to map the returns or results of all votes cast at their polling station.
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Immediately after the votes have been counted – Election inspectors report results to local clerks. They must also deliver all ballot papers, declarations, ballot papers, voter lists and envelopes to the clerk’s office immediately after the polls close.
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Within two hours after the votes are counted – Municipal clerks must report the results to the district clerks no later than two hours after the votes have been counted.
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Within two hours after the clerks have received the declaration – County clerks must post all election results on their county website no more than two hours after receiving results from municipal clerks.
More: Early voting begins today in Wisconsin. Here you will find locations, dates and times for Milwaukee and the suburbs
This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: When will the presidential election take place in Wisconsin?
