New York Times: “Election Results Could Take Awhile”
Promises Another “Red Mirage”
Americans won’t know the results of this year’s election on election night, according to The New York Times.
“For the second straight presidential election, it is becoming increasingly likely that there will be no clear and immediate winner on election night and that early returns could give a false impression of who will ultimately prevail,” writes Nick Corasaniti.
“Large swaths of Americans have changed their voting habits in recent years, relying increasingly on mail-in ballots, which take more time to count than those cast in person on Election Day. States with prolonged vote-counting processes, such as Arizona, have become suddenly competitive. And the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump appears extremely close.”
Corasaniti assures readers that “if a winner is not declared on election night, it will not necessarily point to failures in the process.”
“More likely, it will be a result of the intense security measures required for counting mail-in ballots.”
The article goes on to describe how election officials are already doing their best to prepare voters to wait “days” for the result. In large part, this is being done to “counter conspiracy theorists who may seize on the uncertainty as evidence of fraud or malfeasance.”
Once again, America could see a “red mirage,” the article predicts, as initial exit polls skew heavily towards the Republican candidate because of in-person voting, only for the Democrat candidate to win once the mail-in votes are counted.
In 2020, mail-in votes were crucial in flipping battleground states that Donald Trump claimed to have won. The final result was not revealed until the Saturday after the election.
