By The Associated Press

EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:

One of the hallmarks of American elections is that there’s a lot of waiting. The 2020 presidential contest, for example, wasn’t called until four days after the election. As we look ahead to the 2024 election, we can expect some more waiting on election night.

There’s no national body that administers the election. So every state plus the District of Columbia gets to decide how they run their elections, and they all do things a little differently.

As people watch the results on election night, it’s important to understand that these rules can mean different candidates take the lead at different times — and that tabulating final results can take days and even weeks.

Voters can expect to be in suspense in several swing states that will determine who wins the White House.

In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for instance, mail ballots are not opened until Election Day, which extends the vote counting process.

Most states with mail voting allow ballots to be opened several days before Election Day and tallied ahead of time. That’s why some states with a lot of mail ballots, like Georgia, report their results faster.

Other states that rely heavily on mail can take longer, however.

In Arizona, voters can drop off a mail ballot as late as at the time polls close on Election Day. And a recent law in Nevada allows ballots that are mailed on Election Day and arrive a couple of days later to be counted.

In recent elections, misinformation has spread in places where election officials have taken days to release a complete ballot count. Experts and election officials say state laws are a factor and that time and labor are necessary to process and correctly tabulate ballots.

Here’s a closer look at the process in some key states.

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CHECK OUT THESE VIDEOS

• Explaining Election Day: Ballots that take a long time to count
• Why does it take long to count votes in some states?

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ARIZONA

In Arizona, ballots cast and processed before Election Day are the first to be reported after polls close. These ballots have tended to favor Democrats, ever since the issue of early and mail voting became highly politicized during the 2020 election. In the 2022 U.S. Senate election, Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly began the night with a nearly 20 point lead over Republican Blake Masters, but that narrowed to about a 5 point win by the time the results were certified.

Mail ballots that are delivered on Election Day take much longer to tabulate because election workers do not begin processing or verifying them until after polls close. In Maricopa County, which has the state’s largest population, about 20% of the nearly 1.6 million votes cast in 2022 were mail ballots dropped off on Election Day.

Maricopa County is by far the most influential of the state’s 15 counties in statewide elections. It is home to Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Mesa and contributed nearly 62% of the vote in the 2020 presidential race. Pima County was a distant second with about 15% of the vote.

GEORGIA

Georgia state law allows county elections officials to begin tabulating mail ballots at 7 a.m. on Election Day. As a result, the first votes reported on election night will include much of these mail ballots as well as early in-person votes. Overall, these ballots have tended to favor Democrats, ever since the issue of early and mail voting became highly politicized during the 2020 election. This suggests that the Democratic candidate in a competitive contest could take an early lead in the vote count in the initial vote reports after polls close, even though the race may tighten considerably as more votes are tabulated.

In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, for example, Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock took a lead of about 40 percentage points over Republican Herschel Walker after the first batches of votes were released after polls closed, but the vote margin dipped to below 1 percentage point after about two hours and remained there for the rest of the count and through certification. Mail and early in-person votes accounted for about 64% of all ballots in that election.

In September, Georgia’s State Election Board adopted a new rule requiring poll workers to hand count the number of paper ballots cast at their polling site. Critics worried the last-minute rule change could create chaos in local elections offices and significantly delay the vote-counting process. A Fulton County Superior Court judge blocked the rule in October.

MICHIGAN

A new law gives local elections officials more time to process and tabulate mail ballots, which should help alleviate the logjam that slowed ballot counting in the 2020 presidential election.

Cities and towns with at least 5,000 people may begin processing and tabulating ballots up to eight days before Election Day, while smaller jurisdictions may begin the morning before Election Day.

In 2020, more than 3.1 million voters cast their ballots by mail, about 56% of all ballots cast. State law at the time prevented election workers from opening the envelopes and preparing ballots for the count until the night before Election Day. Trump took an early lead in the vote count on election night, but that lead began to erode overnight and early Wednesday morning and Biden took the lead later that afternoon.

The law change may result in a speedier release of mail voting totals and may mitigate the so-called “red mirage” that Trump falsely claimed was evidence of voter fraud in Michigan and in a handful of other key states.

NEVADA

Nevada conducts its elections predominantly by mail. In 2021, the state adopted a law requiring mail-in ballots to be automatically sent to active voters, making permanent an emergency measure implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midterm elections the following year, about 80% of voters cast their ballots in-person before Election Day or by mail.

Mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day will be counted if they are received by Nov. 9, four days after Election Day. With a large number of mail ballots potentially arriving after Election Day, the outcome of some highly competitive races might not be determined until these additional mail ballots are received and tabulated. State Republicans challenged this law, but a federal court dismissed the lawsuit in July. In recent elections, votes counted after Election Day have been heavily Democratic.

Although most ballots are cast by mail, voters have the option of voting in-person at a polling place on Election Day. The state does not release any vote results until the final voter in line has cast a ballot, which could be well after the time polls formally close.

NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina has a track record of counting votes relatively quickly, leaving only about 1% of the vote uncounted after election night. This year, the count could be slowed in some areas due to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. State elections officials approved emergency measures in 13 western counties giving voters additional options for turning in their absentee ballots.

State law allows county elections officials to begin tabulating mail ballots before the polls have closed on Election Day. As a result, the first votes reported on election night will include many of these mail ballots. Overall, these ballots have tended to favor Democrats, ever since the issue of early and mail voting became highly politicized during the 2020 election. This means that the Democratic candidate in a competitive contest could take an early lead in the vote count in the initial vote reports after polls close, even though the race may tighten considerably as more votes are tabulated.

In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, for example, Democrat Cheri Beasley took a 20 point lead over Ted Budd when the first batches of votes were released after polls closed. That lead disappeared after about 90 minutes, when Budd overtook Beasley in the vote count and went on to win the seat. Mail and early in-person votes accounted for about 59% of all ballots in that election.

PENNSYLVANIA

Several factors contribute to a relatively slow vote counting process in Pennsylvania. Under Pennsylvania law, elections officials must wait until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day before they can begin to process ballots cast by mail and prepare them to be counted. The release of mail voting results cannot begin until after polls have closed. Because of the overall volume of mail ballots — they comprised almost a quarter of the total vote in the 2022 midterm elections — and the varying amounts of time it takes the state’s 67 counties to tally these votes, determining a winner in a highly competitive race could take several days, as it did in the 2020 presidential election.

The first vote results reported after polls close are expected to come from mail ballots. Results from later in the night are expected to be a mix of mail votes and votes cast in person on Election Day. Once the vote counting stretches into the day after Election Day and beyond, the vote results are once again expected to come mostly from mail ballots.

Overall, votes cast by mail have tended to favor Democrats, ever since the issue of early and mail voting became highly politicized during the 2020 election. This means the Democratic candidate in a competitive contest could take an early lead in the vote count in the initial vote reports after polls close, even though the race may tighten considerably as more votes are tabulated.

WISCONSIN

In Wisconsin, the first vote results reported on election night tend to be a mix of ballots cast on Election Day and in advance. In the April presidential primaries, more than a third of counties reported most or all of their vote results in their first vote report of the night — including in-person Election Day votes as well as mail-in and early votes.

But larger counties, including the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Dane, took much longer. Their first vote update of the night included only a small share of the total votes cast. In a close race, that likely means waiting for final results in both places to know who has won the state.

In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite winning Milwaukee County with 66% of the vote; Dane County, the home of Madison, with 70%; and LaCrosse County with 51%. Four years later, Biden won Milwaukee with 69% of the vote, Dane with 76% and LaCrosse with 56%, eking out a narrow statewide victory.

Trump carried Brown County, the home of Green Bay, in 2016 and 2020 with about 52% of the vote, but Biden improved upon Clinton’s showing there by about 4 percentage points on his way to a win.

Along with support in the more rural parts of the state, Trump will likely need to post big numbers in the “WOW” counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington in suburban Milwaukee to counter the heavy Democratic support Harris will likely claim in Milwaukee and Dane.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Election SOS has this story template for newsrooms for setting expectations on elections results.
• AP Decision Notes: See what to expect in your state on Election Day. 
• Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy.

Clarification: This post has been updated to reflect the release of mail voting results in Pennsylvania cannot begin until after the polls close. 

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Localize It is a resource produced by The Associated Press for local newsrooms’ use. Questions can be directed to Katie Oyan at koyan@ap.org.

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The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here.