Election week could be just as long, and fraught, as 2020

Election week could be just as long, and fraught, as 2020 as 2020 .

Delayed election results can open the door to suspicion and disinformation.

Election disinformation has already picked up. Delayed results aren’t just a test of patience. They can open a door for bad-faith actors to attack the system.

Forty-three states allow county election officials to begin pre-processing mail ballots before Election Day .

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are exceptions, which slows downvote counting in two states that have been pivotal in the past two presidential elections.

The counties that tend to take the longest to count their ballots are invariably large urban areas, which tend to be racially diverse and heavily Democratic .

Preliminary early voting numbers across various states show that registered Democrats are still voting by mail at a much higher rate than Republicans .

In states like Nevada and Arizona where mail voting is dominant, it will simply take much longer to tabulate ballots.

Arizona officials, unlike workers in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , can preprocess mail ballots, but they can’t begin processing ballots dropped off on Election Day until polls are closed.