Mail-in Voting Extensions in Battleground States: Will We Know the Winner on Election Night?

Early voting has reached a record high; 84 million people according to the Elections Project have already voted and that number continues to grow. The unprecedented amount of early voting  already measures at over half of the total people who voted early in the 2016 Presidential Election. With more early voting than ever, mail-in ballots have flooded the postal system and some states have requested an extension to count votes.

On Wednesday the Supreme Court ruled in some battleground states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania that mail-in ballots will receive an extension; Wisconsin did not receive the extended timeline. Despite the state’s resurgence of COVID cases. All mail-in ballots have to be received by Election Day or they will not be counted.

The Supreme Court’s 5-3 decision allows North Carolina’s mail-in ballots to continue to be counted until Nov. 12 as long as they are postmarked on or before election day. North Carolina’s State Board of Elections decided to extend the voter timeline due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pennsylvania received an additional three-days after the election to count mail-in ballots. The final day for a ballot to be counted is Nov.6. The Supreme Court upheld this decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, meaning the final count could be delayed.

On Thursday, in states like Minnesota, the appeals court ruled that all mail-in ballots must be in by Nov. 3 despite telling voters that they would accept them up to a week after if they were postmarked on or before election day.

According to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland “53 percent of voters expect it to take at least two to three days before the winner of the presidential race is known, and 25 percent say it could take a week or more.” With early voting numbers rising as the election is less than a week away.

Voter turnout at the polls on election day is set to be high and the outcome of the election may be unclear on the night. States with counting processes that take longer might not know their results until a few days or weeks after election night. This could dramatically impact the aforementioned battleground states; but there is no way to tell because of the unprecedented nature of this election. 

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Photos: Her Campus Media

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