When will the 2024 election results be published? These swing states will not count mail-in ballots until Election Day

Topline

Americans may have to wait days for the outcome of the presidential election if vote counts in battleground states are as close as polls suggest, as several key swing states do not allow officials to begin processing or counting mail-in ballots until Election Day . This means it can take days to know who won.

Important facts

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The slowest battleground states for counting mail-in votes

Pennsylvania: The state will be one of the slowest to release mail-in ballot results because officials cannot begin processing mail-in ballots (such as removing ballots from envelopes and verifying voter signatures) until the morning of Election Day and cannot record votes The total numbers are valid until after polling closes at 8 p.m

Wisconsin: Wisconsin also won't begin processing its mail-in ballots until Election Day, meaning it will take longer to release results.

Battleground states that should start counting on Election Day – but release results more quickly

Georgia: Officials in Georgia have already begun tabulating mail-in ballots — this is allowed starting the third Monday before Election Day — and under state law, ballot counting can begin at 7 a.m. on Election Day. This means that there will probably be at least partial results by the end of the surveys. The state's elections board approved new rules that could have delayed the tabulation process, including imposing a hand-counting requirement for ballots, but the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that those requirements remain blocked for now.

North Carolina: The state begins processing mail-in ballots before Election Day and begins counting its mail-in ballots on Election Day before the polls close – between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., according to state law. Begin counting specifically. The state's election board said in February that its procedures mean mail-in ballots returned before Election Day should be counted by that evening, although Election Day ballots could take longer to return. North Carolina has passed a new election law that requires officials to wait until polls close on Election Day to count early ballots on-site, but that could easily cause results to be delayed by about an hour on election night .

Battleground states count mail-in ballots before Election Day

Arizona: The state begins counting early mail-in ballots as soon as they are received, even if that happens before Election Day. But the state's count could still be slowed by a regulation that requires officials to wait until polls have closed and all voters have left to pick up ballots left in ballot boxes on Election Day. That could be a significant share of the vote, with the Maricopa County Recorder's Office noting that those ballots accounted for 20% of the county's total ballots in the 2022 general election. Election results could also be slowed as officials need to process mail-in ballots from Election Day and verify signatures before sending them out to be counted. Maricopa County – the state's most populous county – said completion took until the Sunday after Election Day 2022.

Michigan: Michigan lawmakers passed a new law after the 2020 election that now allows absentee ballot counting to begin eight days before Election Day, or one day before Election Day for cities with fewer than 5,000 residents. That means many results in the state will likely be announced quickly once polls close.

Nevada: Unlike 2020, the state now allows counting of mail-in ballots to begin 15 days before Election Day, and officials can count ballots as soon as they are received on Election Day. That means results are likely to be announced more quickly than in 2020, when it took several days for the state's race for President Joe Biden to be called.

What we don't know

How long exactly will it take for postal votes to be counted? Voters will likely rely less on absentee voting this election than they did in 2020, when many voters cast their ballots by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, this presidential election took days to be called, as Biden won only a narrow victory that required most mail-in ballots to be counted to call. However, states are still reporting high numbers of absentee ballot requests — including about 716,000 in Wisconsin and 1.9 million in Pennsylvania, the two slowest reporting states — suggesting that counting ballots could still take a while .

Further reading

ForbesSwing state polls for the 2024 election: Latest polls show Trump in Nevada, Georgia (Update)From Sara Dorn
ForbesTrump vs. Harris 2024 polls: Trump ahead in new HarrisX/Forbes poll – Harris leads in anotherFrom Sara Dorn
ForbesPennsylvania 2024 Trump-Harris polls: Harris leads crucial swing state in latest pollFrom Sara Dorn
ForbesWisconsin 2024 Trump-Harris polls: Harris leads by 3 points in the latest pollFrom Sara Dorn