Votes Should Be Counted After Election Day
The Claim
Votes shouldn't be counted after Election Day.
News posted on
Emerging story
Before, during, and after the U.S. presidential election, some on social media have been repeating President Trump's claim that votes should not be counted after Election Day. Major news outlets were also talking about the President’s claim the morning after the election.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar has found that the social media chatter is most likely in response to Trump calling a recent Supreme Court decision on absentee ballots “terrible.” According to NPR, the decision allows election officials in Pennsylvania to count absentee ballots received as late as Friday as long as they are postmarked by November 3, 2020.
According to The Atlantic, counting ballots takes time and very few states will have votes counted by the end of Election Day. According to Representative Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional-law professor, in The Atlantic, “There’s not a single state in America [in which] it’s the rule that you stop counting ballots at midnight. The rule is you count all the ballots.”
However, different states do have different deadlines regarding voting. For example, according to CNN.com, mail-in ballots in Wisconsin could be counted only if they are received by Election Day.
According to the New York Times, twenty-two states and the District of Columbia allow postmarked ballots to arrive after Election Day, so the timing of counting the ballots will depend on when voters return them. All of the votes will continue to be counted in all states and the results are never official until final certification, which occurs in each state in the weeks following the election.
As always, votes will continue to be counted as long as they meet the deadlines set by each state.
