The 2020 presidential election took days to be called, declaring President Joe Biden the winner.
There are many questions ahead of the 2024 presidential election on November 5 between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
How long will the count take? What should we expect? How will that process work this time around?
NBC News’ Director of Elections John Lapinski said there are a few scenarios that could play out this year.
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When will the race be called?
Lapinski said there is a chance that the presidential race could be called as early as Wednesday morning or sometime that day.
He said it’ll come down to how close some of the battleground states, particularly Pennsylvania.
Lapinski expects Pa. to be able to count votes quickly and for a winner to be called if this isn’t as tight of a race as it’s been foreshadowed to be.
“We could have most of the vote by Wednesday morning, and if that’s the case and there's a little bit of spread between the candidates. We might be able to put in a check mark and project a winner,” he said.
How quickly will Pa. process ballots?
“Pennsylvania is a somewhat of a complicated place in terms of how they process ballots,” Lapinski said. “They don’t start processing mail-in-ballots until seven in the morning on Election Day.”
He is expecting Pa. to be able to count its ballots quicker this time because the counties have invested in new machines and more people.
He also noted that we aren’t conducting this election during a pandemic.
Pa. could be completely tied between the candidates, which would prolong the race being called, but if not the winner could be decided quickly.
What should people watch for on Election Night to prepare for the results?
Lapinski said the expectation is that shortly after the polls close a lot of the larger counties should be able to report out results quickly.
He said those results will be from early voting, which will probably be very pro-Harris. Then we’ll see the Election Day votes come in and that will probably be more pro-Trump.
This will probably look like Harris starting out with a large lead that Lapinski said will evaporate.
The last stage will be getting those late arriving mail-in-ballots and dealing with the provisionals if the race is close, which will be really important in states like Pennsylvania.
