We Have Never Had Final Results on Election Day

President Trump has been trying to pre-emptively delegitimize ballots counted after Nov. 3. But states have always counted past election night.
Jasper County elections officials sorted ballots in Newton, Iowa, on Saturday. In many states, it could take days of counting votes to get an accurate picture of the results.
Jasper County elections officials sorted ballots in Newton, Iowa, on Saturday. In many states, it could take days of counting votes to get an accurate picture of the results.Credit...Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times
Maggie Astor

By Maggie Astor

Published Nov. 1, 2020Updated Nov. 2, 2020, 11:59 a.m. ET

Get emails for all live election updates, including on Election Day

For weeks, President Trump and his allies have been laying groundwork to challenge the results of the election if he loses. Now, in the final days of the campaign, he has settled on a blatantly ahistorical closing argument: that the votes in a fair election should not be counted past election night.

“The Election should end on November 3rd., not weeks later!” he tweeted on Friday, two days after telling reporters in Nevada, “Hopefully, the few states remaining that want to take a lot of time after Nov. 3 to count ballots, that won’t be allowed by the various courts.”

“You would think you want to have the votes counted, tabulated, finished by the evening of Nov. 3,” he said at a campaign event a week earlier.

In reality, the scenario Mr. Trump is outlining — every vote in a modern election being “counted, tabulated, finished” by midnight — is not possible and never has been. No state ever reports final results on election night, and no state is legally expected to.
Video
transcript
0:00/7:22
Trump’s Campaign Is Building an Army of Poll Watchers. What Can They Actually Do?
President Trump and his campaign have been calling for an army of poll watchers on Election Day. What is poll watching, and when does it cross the line? We look at how a federal consent decree restricted the Republican Party for decades, and why its expiration could make a difference in 2020.

This year, as the president has been talking about— “Fraud like you’ve never seen. They have these fake ballots. They’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen. I hope you’re all going to be poll watchers.” “His language has taken on an almost militaristic tone.” “Go into the polls and watch very carefully. Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.” There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections. Still, the president talks about recruiting an army of poll watchers. “It’s taken on such an aggressive nature in a way that we’ve kind of never seen before. It’s very frightening to election officials.” “It paints poll watching with a veneer of antagonism, combat and not in the spirit of protecting our elections.” But it’s more than just rhetoric. This year, the Republican Party can throw its full weight behind the president’s poll watching operations in ways we haven’t seen for nearly 40 years. To understand why, let’s take a trip back in time — “Wherever I go, people ask me what a New Jersey vacation is like” — to a governor’s race in New Jersey in 1981. “When I ran in that election, it was a very interesting election, to say the least.” This was the Democratic candidate James Florio. And here he is now. “That’s a long time ago, that’s 40 years ago.” The race was an early referendum on the Reagan administration. “I like Tom Kean.” “Kean has endorsed Reaganomics and proposed cuts in state taxes on business. The Democratic candidate, Congressman James Florio, attacks both Reagan’s and Kean’s economic plan.” “We thought it would be an election on the merits of the issues” — “revitalizing our railroads, cleaning up toxic waste, strengthening law enforcement” — “turned out that was not all involving the merits.” It was the closest fought election in the history of the state. But as it turns out, it wasn’t a clean fight. “Election day yielded some surprises to a lot of people who went to the polls because people saw off duty policemen with armbands that said ‘members of the Ballot Security Task Force.’” “That’s the Republican group, which according to state Democrats, intimidated some minority voters.” “It looked very official. And they were standing there with their guns.” “They obstructed voters from casting ballots. But also they obstructed access by poll workers.” More than 200 task force members showed up at the polls, confronting voters in Democratic strongholds. They were in Newark but not in Short Hills. They were in Trenton but not Princeton. And Camden but not in Cherry Hill. “If you look at the demographics of the neighborhoods that were targeted for these efforts, they were all predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods. White voters were not targeted in the same way at all.” “So it was clear that they’re not concerned about ballot integrity. They’re concerned about intimidation. It was a very clever, sinister initiative.” In the end, Florio lost by a razor thin margin. “1,797 votes out of 2.3 million votes. The intimidation had an impact on the outcome of the election.” “It’s a case of sour grapes from Democrats that don’t know how to take defeat.” But this wasn’t just a local effort. Investigations suggested that the task force was organized and paid for by the Republican National Committee. “A covert operation that was at the very least intentionally misleading and resulted in technical violations of our election laws.” Democrats sued the R.N.C. for violating the Voting Rights Act. The R.N.C. was forced to enter into a federal consent decree that would restrict them for years to come. “For the better part of the past four decades, the Republican National Party has been under a consent decree that has limited their ability to coordinate some of these poll watching activities.” “So it created a mechanism that deterred any additional voter intimidation and also created a check on future R.N.C. efforts that might target minority communities.” Under the terms of the consent decree, the R.N.C. had to get court approval for poll watching plans. The party tried unsuccessfully to get out of it for many years. “And they were found to be in violation of the consent decree at least three times since it was put into place.” Then in 2017, the court allowed the consent decree to expire, setting up a different kind of fight in 2020. “This will be the first presidential election where we will see the Republican National Party operating a poll watching operation without the consent decree hovering over their heads. Now that it has been lifted, it looks like there is going to be a more organized and a bigger poll watching operation coming out of the Republican National Party.” Republicans say they’re training more than 50,000 poll watchers in at least 15 battleground states. They’ve released a series of carefully worded training presentations for volunteers. “Poll watchers are the first line of defense for President Trump. Be courteous to county staff and other watchers. Yes, even our Democrat friends. Do not speak with voters and do not interfere with the orderly conduct of the voting process.” Their presence at the polls is perfectly legal if they follow the rules. In early voting this year, there have been a few potential violations. Pennsylvania’s attorney general called out illegal surveillance of a ballot dropbox in Philadelphia. And local news in Florida reported on two armed private security guards who posted themselves near an early voting site. “Two armed security guards showed up outside of the downtown St. Pete early voting location.” “Pretty much ever since the president has been calling on his supporters to watch the polls, election officials and law enforcement agencies across the country have kind of been preparing for what may be an influx of people who don’t know the rules and regulations of poll watching.” In a statement, the R.N.C. said its poll watchers have received rigorous training to follow state laws and are not there to be intimidating. “The big unknown is exactly how big and how widespread the deployment of these poll watchers will be and whether they will have any kind of marching orders from the Republican Party or the Trump campaign to really question a bunch of voters’ eligibility or whether they’ll just kind of follow the more traditional ways.” Ultimately, the consent decree offered a legal shortcut to stop the R.N.C.’s poll watching operations if they crossed the line. “What’s important to keep in mind is that the tactics that were unlawful in 1980 are just as unlawful in 2020. There has never been permission for any political party or any private party to engage in racially targeted voter intimidation or voter intimidation of any sort. And so we’re not without protection. We’re not without tools to combat it. But we do have one less in our arsenal.” “If we see a resumption of the same type of thing this time, we’ll have to go back to court. I can be authoritatively the person that can be definitive and say that small margins make a big difference.”

⚠There was an error loading the player. Please refresh to try again.
President Trump and his campaign have been calling for an army of poll watchers on Election Day. What is poll watching, and when does it cross the line? We look at how a federal consent decree restricted the Republican Party for decades, and why its expiration could make a difference in 2020.

Americans are accustomed to knowing who won on election night because news organizations project winners based on partial counts, not because the counting is actually completed that quickly. These race calls mean Candidate A is far enough ahead that, given the number of outstanding ballots and the regions those ballots are coming from, Candidate B would realistically be unable to close the gap.

Unlock more free articles.

Create an account or log in

The difference this year is not the timing of final results — those will come, as always, by the certification deadlines each state has set, ranging from two days after the election in Delaware to more than a month after in California. The difference, rather, is when news organizations are likely to have enough information to make accurate projections.

If, as Mr. Trump suggested, courts were to force states to stop counting after Nov. 3, it would be an extraordinary subversion of the electoral process and would disenfranchise millions of voters who cast valid, on-time ballots.

“Everyone — including Joe Biden, the Democrat Party, the mainstream media and the American public — should want election results they can trust and for every valid ballot to count,” said Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s campaign. “President Trump and Republicans have long fought for these key principles of our democracy, and in many states won, in the fight against Democrats’ attempts to effectively delay Election Day.”
Editors’ Picks
The Truth About David Sedaris
On ‘S.N.L.’, Jim Carrey Reads a Spooky Election Update of ‘The Raven’
Sean Connery: From Tentative Secret Agent to Suave Bond

Ms. McDonald pointed to efforts in some states to accept ballots that are received late if the postmark is not clear and said this was “exactly the kind of late ballot counting President Trump has been fighting to prevent.”

But Mr. Trump has explicitly criticized the counting and tabulating of votes past Election Day, something that will happen no matter when the ballot receipt deadline is. Ms. McDonald declined to explain or clarify those statements on the record.

Mail ballots tend to take longer to process than in-person votes, and millions more people are voting by mail this year than ever before because of the pandemic. Because the voters choosing to do this are disproportionately Democrats, neither in-person ballots nor mail ballots will be representative of the full vote count.
How Mail Votes Could Delay Election Results

Counting votes by mail involves multiple steps, and in several critical swing states, that process doesn’t begin until Election Day or very close to it.

And because of the intense confusion around voting rules, more voters than usual may have to cast provisional ballots, meaning election officials will have to verify their eligibility before counting their votes.

In some states — like Colorado, which has been conducting elections by mail for years, or Florida, which allows officials to begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day — it may still be possible to call winners on election night, depending on how close the races are.
Election 2020 ›
Latest Updates
Updated
Nov. 2, 2020, 9:38 p.m. ET4 minutes ago
4 minutes ago

‘Vote like our lives depend on it because they do,’ Kamala Harris says in Philadelphia.
Despite a surge in absentee ballots, fewer than expected are being rejected, election officials say.
Two final swing state polls give Biden a slight edge over Trump in Ohio and Florida.

But in many other states — including the all-important Pennsylvania, where some counties will not begin counting mail-in ballots until Nov. 4 because of limited resources — it could take several days to get an accurate picture.

If this happens, it will be evidence not of a conspiracy but of the electoral system working as it should, by counting every vote. And while much about this year’s election is abnormal, delayed results would not be. Even in the smoothest elections, we don’t necessarily get quick calls in close races.

On election night in 2018, it wasn’t clear who had won governor’s races in Florida, Georgia and Wisconsin; Senate races in Arizona and Florida; and a slew of House races in California, Georgia, New York, Texas and Utah. While there were recounts and legal disputes in a handful of these races, the uncertainty in most places had nothing to do with changing or challenging the counts — it just took time to finish counting.

If the tallies had been frozen at midnight, even many in-person votes would not have been counted. And the ballots tallied after Election Day did not uniformly benefit one party.
ImageEarly voting in Las Vegas on Friday.
Early voting in Las Vegas on Friday.Credit...Bridget Bennett for The New York Times

In Minnesota’s First Congressional District, for instance, they benefited the Republican candidate, Jim Hagedorn, who was ahead by fewer than 100 votes just after midnight but ended up winning by about 1,300 votes. In California’s 21st Congressional District, they benefited the Democratic candidate, T.J. Cox, who appeared to be losing on election night but ended up winning by about 850 votes.

When we talk about delayed results, it is easy to think of a nightmare scenario like the 2000 presidential election in Florida: a race close enough to trigger a recount, in a tipping-point state, with clear ballot irregularities that can’t easily be resolved, ultimately decided not by the count but by the courts.

But most of the time, the circumstances are much more anodyne, and the results are finalized with no serious questions about their legitimacy.

Few people are likely to remember that it took two weeks to call Missouri for John McCain in 2008, because the election didn’t hinge on the outcome. When the state finally was called on Nov. 19, by a margin of about 0.1 percent, The New York Times reported simply, “The Missouri secretary of state’s office had been waiting for some jurisdictions to examine thousands of provisional ballots and certify and mail in their totals.”

In 2012, it took four days to call Florida for President Barack Obama — and again it was not particularly memorable, because he had already won re-election without the state. While there were plenty of recriminations about how long the counting took, the results themselves were not disputed.

Four years later, Michigan counted ballots for more than two weeks after the Nov. 8 election before delivering Mr. Trump one of his most cherished victories.

“The Great State of Michigan was just certified as a Trump WIN,” he tweeted after that, “giving all of our MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN supporters another victory — 306!”
Access more of The Times by creating a free account or logging in.
Access more for free.