Quote:
Originally Posted by dino7c
Mail in ballots are counted on election day...even before election day in some states. The only ballots not counted on election day will be the ones that don't arrive until after election day. The vast majority of votes will be counted on election day.
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This is not true.
In many states, like Florida and Ohio, mail in ballots are counted before election day. In a few, they're counted on election day, beginning at a specified time, or when the polls open. In others, they are counted starting only when the polls close (i.e., at 8 p.m.).
In cases where mail in ballots can't start to be counted until election day, especially in the case where they don't start counting until the polls close, the counting of mail in votes won't be finished until far later, regardless of when they're received.
So we may know the outcome in Florida on election night. That outcome might be used to predict the makeup of mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted in other states, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and on that basis a reasonable prediction could be made about who will win those states that is reliable enough to cause, say, CNN to call the election. But votes in those states won't be anywhere near finished being counted.