Politics

Eric Boehm | 11.4.2024 2:05 PM

All votes count equally but not all votes are counted the same.

That's why the outcome of key races might not be known until days after this week's Election Day.

In two swing states—Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—election workers are prohibited by state law from processing absentee and mail-in ballots until Election Day. More than 2 million voters in Pennsylvania have requested mail-in ballots this year, and more than 80 percent have already been returned. In other states, those returned ballots would be getting opened, verified, and counted already—and those totals would be quickly reported once the polls closed. In Pennsylvania, however, that won't happen.

The same thing is true in Wisconsin, where about 500,000 mail-in ballots have been requested. If either state's presidential election is close, which seems likely, it will likely be impossible to declare a winner on Tuesday. And if either state is critical to determining the overall winner, which also seems possible, the outcome of the election may remain uncertain for several days.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican, told NPR two weeks ago........

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