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Shortly after Election Day came and went in 2020 with no presidential decision, then-president Donald Trump declared himself the winner, even though millions of votes had yet to be counted. A little more than three days later, the tally would show that he had lost.
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As Trump saw his early leads dwindle in some battleground states, he publicly called for officials to stop counting votes and falsely claimed that the remaining uncounted ballots were fraudulent.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric, it’s not unusual for a candidate’s lead in a tight race to disappear when more votes are counted. That’s called a “shift,” and it’s not a sign of wrongdoing or voter fraud, which is extremely rare, but the reality that elections officials count some batches of ballots earlier than others.
In 2020, the earliest votes counted in some key states leaned Republican, causing a “red mirage”; the later ones leaned Democratic, leading to a “blue shift.”
Blue shifts were especially noticeable in swing states during the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden’s margin of victory came down to thousands of votes among the millions cast.
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Voting patterns and rules have changed since 2020, but if any races shift this year between bedtime and breakfast – or between Tuesday and later in the week – these are the most likely reasons.
The big one: Typically, more Democrats vote by mail
Since 2020, Democrats tend to vote by mail more than Republicans, and some of the most tightly contested swing states process and count mail-in ballots later than in-person ballots.
The 2020 election, which occurred several months into the coronavirus pandemic, set records for early and mail-in voting. The candidates’ messaging widened the gap, as Trump discouraged his supporters from voting by mail, while Biden encouraged it as a safer alternative to Election Day crowds.
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Trump appeared to lead in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan on Nov. 3 after in-person votes were tallied, but all three shifted blue as mail-in ballots were counted.
Trump claimed victory soon after 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 4, declaring from the White House “we did win this election” and called ongoing vote counts in key states “a major fraud on our nation.”
Later that morning, he posted on social media that he “was leading, often solidly, in many key States” before “surprise ballot dumps were counted.” That afternoon, Michigan and Wisconsin were called for Biden.
The next day, Trump made a number of false claims to reporters about how he would win if only “the legal votes” were counted, assailed mail-in voting and said he was “winning in all the key locations … and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away.”
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But there were no “surprise ballot dumps,” just millions of legally cast mail-in ballots that were waiting to be processed and counted by officials.
Laws in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t allow election officials to begin opening and processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, and at the time, Michigan law allowed only a one-day head start. (Some states allow mail-in ballots to be postmarked on Election Day, so they take a few days to wind through the postal system.)
Processing mail-in ballots takes a while – opening the envelopes, verifying signatures, etc. – before they are ready to count. Pennsylvania doesn’t allow the counting of mail-in ballots to begin until after the polls close.
Trump continued posting complaints about the electoral system and ballot-counting on Nov. 6, while his campaign was pushing lawsuits challenging the vote counts. That day, he posted that “Pennsylvania has conducted itself in a horrible lawless way.”
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Pennsylvania finished its count on Saturday, Nov. 7, and its electoral votes clinched the presidency for Biden.
State and federal officials have tightened election laws and policies since 2020 to make it harder to undermine voters’ choices. Among other things, Congress passed a bill barring states from changing how they appoint electors after the election.
Population centres lean blue
Larger urban and suburban counties have more votes to count and tend to lean Democratic. So a state that has been running red for hours (or days) may get an infusion of blue as results come in from urban and suburban areas.
Virginia’s count shifted from red to blue around midnight on Election Day in 2020 when tallies arrived from the populous and largely Democratic D.C. suburbs.
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More Democrats cast provisional ballots
Federal law requires most places to allow voters to cast provisional ballots in national elections if they run into a problem at the polls, such as forgetting to bring an ID or their name not being on the registrar’s list. Those ballots are put aside until election officials can figure out whether each voter was eligible.
Typically, the number of provisional ballots cast is too small to sway an election unless a race is extremely tight. But the people who cast provisional ballots tend to be first-time voters, college students, people who haven’t voted in a long time, and people who have recently moved. The majority of those people lean Democratic.
The earliest states to be called often lean red
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In 2020, states where polls closed the earliest lean Republican, so Trump won more of the first states that were called. But the all-important electoral college tally was close almost from the start. Some populous blue states, notably California, count more slowly than others. (Here’s how long each state is expected to take to count its votes this year.)
Biden was declared the winner on the Saturday after Election Day, but his electoral college margin – 306 to 232 – wasn’t clear until Georgia was called on Nov. 19.
To avoid confusion, The Washington Post will not color a state in its election map red or blue based on early returns in the presidential contest but will wait until the race call is reported for that state.
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When will we know if there’s a blue shift in 2024?
Possibly earlier than in 2020, but it could still take a while if the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is tight.
Pronounced blue shifts may be less likely this year for a few reasons.
Election officials in states that hadn’t had much early voting before 2020 have worked out some bugs and hope to be more efficient.
Fewer people have cast early ballots this year so far compared with 2020, and more of the early voters appear to be Republican. The Trump campaign has been encouraging early voting, although Trump himself still sometimes disparages it.
Edward B. Foley, the Ohio State election law professor who coined the term “blue shift” in 2013, said in an email that he expects a smaller blue shift in Pennsylvania this year.
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Michigan will allow officials to begin processing mail-in votes eight days before Election Day in larger jurisdictions, which could speed the count and reduce or eliminate a blue shift there. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) has said she expects unofficial results in her state by the end of Wednesday at the latest.
However, North Carolina, which historically counts quickly and shifted red on election night in 2020, is a wild card this year as many residents deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. And when an election is tight, time-consuming recounts are more likely, as in Georgia in 2020.
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