Unpacking the Election

Electoral College Timeline

Federal law requires that by Dec 8 states have resolved any “controversy or contest” surrounding the appointment of electors under its own state laws. If this process is complete by the date, Congress is bound to accept the result. Electors meet in their respective states on Dec 14 to cast their votes for the president and vice president. The electors are supposed to vote for the candidate under whose name they were elected and, in 32 states, are legally bound to do so. After the 117th Congress is sworn in, results from each state are opened and the official winner is declared on Jan 6. Read more here.

How has mail-in voting changed the game?

By mid-October, more than 80.5 million ballots had been requested or sent to voters nationwide. Nearly half the ballots counted in the 2020 primaries were by-mail/absentee ballots or cast during early voting. This is an unprecedented volume of mail ballots, and states’ capacities to quickly count these ballots vary. Some states permit pre-processing (verifying signatures, preparing ballots for tabulation) before Election Day and a few permit beginning tabulation before Nov 3. Many states, however, may not start counting ballots until Election Day. This will prolong our wait period for results.

You can learn more about how many people voted early or by mail from the US Elections Project and TargetEarly 2020.

Learn more

NY Times How Quickly Will Your Absentee Vote Be Counted? A State-by-State Timeline

Brookings Institute What to Watch for on Election Night 2020

FiveThirtyEight When To Expect Election Results In Every State

What is the Electoral College?

The Electoral College, not the popular vote, decides the presidential race in the United States. Americans do not directly cast a vote for a presidential candidate; instead, their votes go towards selecting members of the Electoral College. The number of legislators a state has in Congress (Representatives and Senators) determines the number of electors it gets. There are 538 electors, and a candidate needs to win 270 in order to win the presidency. 

Electors are appointed by political parties. In most states, with the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska, the candidate that wins the state’s popular vote will receive all of its electors. While the Electoral College and popular vote have, for the most part, produced the same result, this winner-take-all approach to allocating electors means that the college’s outcome does not always align with the national popular vote. A candidate can lose the popular vote but win the election, which has occurred in five instances, most recently in 2016. 

Learn more

NYTimes The Daily “A Peculiar Way to Pick a President”

Ted-Ed’s “Does your Vote Count? The Electoral College Explained”

NPR Throughline “The Electoral College”

What are other historically contested elections?

The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest and most fierce contested elections in U.S. history. Only 537 votes separated former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore when Bush was declared the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes, thus making Bush the winner. Gore had won the popular vote by 543,895 votes. On election night, news outlets called the election for Gore, then Bush. Gore conceded the election only to later recant, and then results were declared to simply be too close to call. Results for the 2000 election took approximately one month to settle.

The tight margin in Florida made the Florida Supreme Court order a manual recount in four key counties with the instructions to discern “the clear intent of the voter.” Some counties in Florida used a punch-card voting system (the paper tab is known as a “chad”), and many of the contested ballots had indented or partially punched chads, which were not counted by the machine. Some other ballots were contested due to a confusing layout known as the “butterfly ballot,” where there are two columns of candidates that fan out; 20,000 butterfly ballots were pinned for both candidates. 

With the December deadline to appoint electors looming, the Bush lawyers took the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court put a stop to the Florida recount in a 5–4 decision, thus making Bush the president-elect. The Court held that the vague recount rules violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (the lack of clarity in instructions for the recount did not allow all ballots to be counted by the same standard in every county). The court was careful to note, “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.” Bush ultimately took the election with 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266. 

Some however, in perhaps a more pessimistic view, forecast the 2020 election to be more like the 1876 presidential election between Samuel Tilden (D.) and Rutherford B. Hayes (R.). Unlike the 2000 election dispute, which was contained to the courts, the 1876 election dispute shaped the broader political system. 

Learn more

NYTimes The Daily “The Shadow of the 2020 Election”

NPR It’s Been a Minute “Election Night(mare): Bush v. Gore and Why It Matters in 2020”

ProPublica “Why Bush v. Gore Still Matters in 2020”

New Yorker “What Happens if Donald Trump Fights the Election Results”

Complications

It is near certain that some part of the election process will be contested. While President Trump cannot directly contest the results of the election in court (as he has said), parts of the election process, such as the handling of mail-in ballots or other aspects of the administration of the election, can be. In the run-up to the election there have been over 300 court lawsuits filed in 44 states over voting rules. It is unlikely this litigation process will stop on Nov 3.

The Supreme Court recently ruled not to extend Wisconsin’s deadline for mail-in ballots. The ruling means that ballots received after polls close on election day will not be counted, regardless of whether they were postmarked prior to election day. However, the Supreme Court has allowed ballot extensions in Pennsylvania and North Carolina for now. Recent appointee to the Supreme Court Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in either decision.

Learn More

NY Times “Missing From Supreme Court’s Election Cases: Reasons for Its Rulings”

New Yorker “What Happens if Donald Trump Fights the Election Results”

Other general resources

RadioLab “What if”

Transition Integrity Project’s Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition

WNYC “A Historian’s Guide to the 2020 Election” 

Pew Research “Election Night Marks the End of One Phase of Campaign 2020 and the Start of Another”