10 points explaining the complexities of voting and counting votes in the American elections policy

Washington – Former President Donald Trump reiterated the need for the elections to be fair and just in order for their results to be recognized, which increased the pressure on local officials charged with supervising the processes of counting and sorting the final results.

A climate of anxiety and tension hangs over the United States, which today is witnessing unprecedented elections in its 240-year history, especially after the experience of 2020 after Trump refused to acknowledge the election results, and with 60% of Republicans still believing that the past elections were stolen from him.

Many observers fear the occurrence of chaos or a constitutional legal crisis that could be caused by any candidate’s objection to the election results, for which there is much controversy about the method of calculating them and the timing of the completion of the counting, and how this could affect the announcement of the name of the new American president.

Al Jazeera Net presents in the form of a question and answer how Americans vote, the method of calculating the vote, and the importance of the timing of announcing the final election results.

When will the final election result be announced?

The result is not announced in a specific, traditional way. Rather, each state announces the result of the elections in it, and whoever obtains a majority of 270 or more Electoral College votes wins.

There are a series of procedures related to confirming the decision of the members of the Electoral College, Congress officially approving the election results, and ending with the inauguration of the winning president on January 20.

Because of the nature of the American federal system, the United States witnesses 51 separate elections for the 50 states, in addition to Washington, D.C.

The United States is witnessing widespread decentralization in the election process, and it can be said that there is no single national election, and each state holds its elections according to its own internal rules, and each state has a different system and procedures for the voting process, and the specific details for managing the Electoral College meeting (the state’s delegates in the Electoral College). In every state.

Thus, presidential elections are actually a combination of separate state elections rather than a single national election administered by the federal government.

When will we know who won each state?

After the experience of the 2020 elections, and the challenge it witnessed from Republican candidate Donald Trump to its integrity and transparency, and because of the historic levels of voting by mail it witnessed, and because of the outbreak and spread of the Corona pandemic, many states have followed additional systems and procedures to ensure the accuracy of the sorting and counting process, and it is expected that some states will They will be very slow in counting their votes this year, while other states will be relatively faster.

The election result is not expected to be known by the end of Tuesday, November 5, unless a candidate sweeps all the swing states on the East Coast located at the same time, namely North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. As difficult as this scenario is, the counting and sorting process may take several days.

Experts who spoke to Al Jazeera Net expected that the final election results would be announced after a week.

Do states allow ballots to be accepted after the official election date?

22 states, in addition to Washington, DC, allow ballot papers to be accepted provided that they are postmarked before the end of the official Election Day. Thus, the timing of the completion of ballot counting depends on the date voters send them.

Among these states are California, which allows cards to be accepted until November 20, the US capital (November 13), Iowa (November 9), and Minnesota (November 10).

The New York Times expected that the results would not be officially announced on election night, as this would require all states to finish counting their voters’ votes first.

When do we know the results of the swing states?

Of the seven key swing states likely to decide the election, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Arizona are expected to be in a position to count and count the most votes on election night or a few hours later.

Naturally, the narrower the margin of vote difference between the candidates in any of these states, the longer it takes to count and count to confirm who won, assuming no unexpected problems arise.

These states have done at least the bare minimum to prepare for the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots flooding in this election.

In contrast to them come the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which are the three states that gave Biden the victory 4 years ago and gave Trump the victory 8 years ago. The situation is completely different, as the Republican legislatures in these states have almost completely refused to update the old policies that deal with ballots. mailed and sorted, so it can take days for these states to get close to finishing counting and sorting.

What does the rise in postal and early voting rates mean for the chances of both candidates?

More than 80 million Americans voted before the final polling day, November 5, and no accurate results have been announced for this stage yet. If in-person voting is more supportive of Trump than mail-in voting in these swing states, the slow counting and sorting of postal ballots could leave the impression on the first night that Trump is victorious in these states, although this may not be true.

According to calculations of the candidates’ share of delegates in the Electoral College, it is certain that Trump cannot win the presidency without winning at least one of those three slow-counting states. This means that it is possible that Trump will not claim victory on election night, as his path to victory passes through the slow-counting states. Counting and sorting.

However, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris appears to be in a better position, as there are states that Trump won in 2016 and then Biden won in 2020, and they are now states that are expected to announce their results quickly, and if Harris is able to flip states that Trump won, such as North Carolina She is almost certain to win the presidency, and the same will happen if Trump pulls off an upset and wins a Democratic stronghold like Virginia.

Why do states differ in the timing of announcing the final voting results?

Because election administration is decentralized, the law leaves it to each state to establish rules and procedures for announcing voting results. After the events of 2020, many states amended these laws.

With the rise in mail-in voting rates, the real challenge becomes that mail-in ballots take a long time to verify their authenticity, as registration information must be verified to match government records to prevent fraud and for the vote to be considered valid.

There was a simple solution, which was to start counting and counting postcards early, and not wait until Election Day, but Republicans in some states prevented this for political reasons related to their suspicions that mail-in voters tended more to the Democrats.

Which states have already begun counting votes?

Florida, for example, took the first steps in counting and counting mail-in ballots weeks ago (although vote numbers will not be released publicly until the polls close tonight), as did Arizona and North Carolina.

This will result in the fact that preliminary results may be announced in these states tonight, and the result may be that in each of these states Trump leads, but when the votes that were counted and counted early are added, the result may turn in favor of Harris, or the difference between them may narrow significantly. .

Which swing states did not start counting votes early?

Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin refused to take this basic, common-sense step to start voting early.

More specifically, Republican legislatures in those states have refused to change state law to allow it, despite demands from Democrats.

As a result, the counting and sorting process will take a long time, especially with states obligated to determine whether mail-in ballots have been completed correctly.

Does the state count and count all of its electors’ votes at the same time?

No, there are big differences even within one state. There are areas where the counting takes place quickly, and in others the counting takes a longer time.

Cities often take longer to complete the counting and sorting of their ballots compared to urban or rural areas. Traditionally, cities vote for Democrats, and other areas for Republicans. Therefore, the state can start with a significant lead for Trump in postal ballots, and the situation changes with the completion of the counting and sorting of city cards.

Could Tuesday’s results give one of the candidates victory?

This cannot be easily imagined, and it is difficult to imagine Trump or Harris collecting 270 electoral votes on election night, assuming that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania will not have their results announced for several days, as we mentioned above.