Early vote may be the big surprise

In 2016, the electoral college delivered a surprising outcome to the U.S. presidential election. In 2020, it could be the early vote.

By U.S. election day on Tuesday, roughly 100 million ballots had already been cast at advance polls or by mail-in voting, breaking all previous advance voting records and a likely factor delaying a clear winner in the high-stakes contest between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

More broadly, analysts expected voter turnout to be around 65 per cent, higher even than in 2016, and the highest voter turnout in a century.

Unlike in Canada, where Elections Canada manages federal elections, in the United States, every state operates its own voting system. This means, quite simply, there are numerous rules, varying by state, that determine when advance votes can be cast and counted.

“There are some places where we think there will be some potential several-day delays in the bulk of the counting,” said John Fortier, director of governmental studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center and author of Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises and Peril.

This is particularly an issue in the swing states. The reason for delays is fairly simple: Some states say mail-in ballots must be in by election day; others accept them for days or weeks afterward, if they're postmarked prior to election day. Some states prepare to count in advance, others only begin on election day. Some states count more centrally, others leave it to municipal election authorities.

Already, there have been several lawsuits over advance voting, seemingly driven, at least in part, by the fact that this time around, it appeared Democrats were voting in advance more heavily than Republicans, with 48 per cent of advance votes from Democrats and 42 per cent from Republicans, according to a Vox analysis.

In Texas, for example, there were lawsuits attempting to have drive-thru votes disallowed. In Pennsylvania — perhaps the most important swing state — state Republicans attempted last month to stop votes from being counted after election day. The state Supreme Court allowed the votes to be counted; the Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States to issue a stay. They declined.