[US Election 2024]
Record Early Voting Turnout May Delay Counting and Tabulation
Recount Requests and Lawsuits Possible If Vote Margins Are Narrow
The U.S. presidential election, which determines the occupant of the White House, began on the 5th, but it is expected to take longer than anticipated to declare the final 'winner.' This is due to the record-breaking early voting turnout and a series of lawsuits that could delay the vote counting and tallying process.
With a neck-and-neck race between former President Donald Trump of the Republican Party and Vice President Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, the enthusiasm for early voting is hotter than ever. This is because, in addition to the typically active Democratic early voters, even the Republican base, further united by Trump's encouragement, has turned out for early voting.
According to the Election Lab at the University of Florida, as of 4 p.m. on the 4th (local time, Eastern Standard Time), nearly 81 million voters had completed early voting. This surpasses 80% of the early votes cast in the 2020 presidential election (about 100 million), which recorded the highest turnout in U.S. elections since 1900. Considering approximately 30 million mail-in ballots that have not yet been returned, the number of early voters is expected to increase further.
Due to this record-breaking early voting participation, it is anticipated that the final vote count in this election may also be delayed, as was the case in the 2020 election. In particular, mail-in ballots require significant time for preparation before counting, including scanning envelopes, sorting ballots, and verifying the legality of voters' signatures.
For this reason, most states begin preparation work before Election Day, but seven battleground states, including Pennsylvania, prohibit sorting and verifying mail-in ballots before Election Day, causing their final counting and tallying to finish later than other states. The Associated Press reported, "Experts say that in Arizona, notorious for its vast territory and complex voting and counting procedures, it could take up to 13 days to complete all counting and tallying."
Even after early voting results are released, problems remain. If the vote margin is narrow, the candidate who loses the lead may request a recount or enter into legal battles. Twenty-four states and Washington D.C., including the key battleground Pennsylvania (0.5 percentage points), mandate recounts if the vote difference falls within a certain margin. Sky News reported that this election "could be remembered as a 'litigation election,'" noting that "both sides have assembled large legal teams ready to fight." If a clear victory is not confirmed immediately after the election, legal disputes and a sluggish transfer of power could delay the declaration of the winner.
The scenario that foreign media are most focused on is Vice President Harris leading former President Trump by a narrow margin. Experts speculate that the Trump camp might, as in the election four years ago, spread false information to sow distrust in the election results or request recounts in battleground states to buy time. In the process of physically blocking the joint session of Congress that formalizes the election results, there is also a possibility of violent incidents repeating, similar to January 6, 2021.
According to the Associated Press, in the 2012 election, victory declarations were reported after 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Election Day. In the 2016 election, it was in the early morning of the following day, and in the 2020 election, it was only possible on the morning of November 7, four days later. Under U.S. federal law, each state must certify election results by December 11. Certified election results are then sent to Congress after the state electors meet six days later on the 17th. When the new session of Congress begins on January 3 of the following year, the House elects a speaker, and three days later, on the 6th, the joint session of Congress officially confirms the presidential election results.
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