7 battleground states: Don't be fooled by early US vote counts; they might be misleading

As the race reaches its final hours, all eyes are fixed on the seven battleground states that could decide the 2024 US presidential election.

However, early vote returns in swing states may not be a good indicator of whether Democratic candidate Kamala Harris or Republican rival Donald Trump will win, thanks to vote counting rules and quirks in several key states.

In the 2020 election, some states showed a "red mirage," in which Trump was leading on election night, before a "blue shift" saw Democrat Joe Biden overtake him as mail-in ballots favoured by more Democratic voters were counted.

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Experts had accurately predicted it would happen but Trump still used the shift to amplify his false claims that the election was stolen. It could happen again this week, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The opposite – a “blue mirage” apparently showing a strong result for Harris only for a “red shift” to reverse the trend - could also happen this week, especially in North Carolina and Georgia.

How it all plays out will depend on how and when the large numbers of mail-in or early ballots are processed and counted in the different states.

Another factor is that Democrats tend to live in more populous urban areas, where counting votes takes longer.

There are seven battleground states likely to decide the election, each with its own rules for handling and counting ballots. Here's what to expect on Election Day and beyond:

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania did not have a clear winner in 2020 for four days after Election Day, as officials sifted through a huge backlog of mail ballots.

The state is among only a handful that do not permit election workers to process or tabulate mail ballots until 7am ET (4pm Wednesday GST) on Election Day, which means it will likely again take days before the outcome is known.

With more Democrats than Republicans voting by mail, the early results – based on in-person Election Day votes – will probably show Trump ahead, but his lead will likely shrink as more mail ballots are counted.

That pattern in 2020 prompted Trump to falsely claim fraud. This year, a new law requires most counties to announce at midnight on election night how many mail ballots remain to be counted in an effort to forestall conspiracy theories.

Wisconsin

Like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin does not allow election officials to process or count mail ballots until the morning of the election, which means there can be a delay in reporting the results of those early votes.

In addition, many of the state's largest cities transport mail ballots to a centralised location for processing and tabulating. That can lead to significant batches of votes getting reported all at once in the early morning of Wednesday.

In 2020, Trump and his allies falsely claimed fraud after Milwaukee, the state's largest city, reported nearly 170,000 absentee ballots around 3:30am CT (12:30pm Wednesday, GST), giving Biden a huge spike that moved him into the lead for the first time.

That increase was expected due to the way the city processes those ballots and the fact that Democrats were more likely to vote by mail. A similar pattern is probable in 2024.

Georgia

Early in-person voting is popular in Georgia, where officials expected 65 per cent to 70 per cent of ballots to be cast at early poll locations.

Absentee or mail ballots, which may comprise around 5 per cent of the vote, can be processed - which includes steps such as verifying signatures - starting two weeks before the election, though workers must wait until Election Day to begin counting them.

All early votes – in-person and mail – must be counted and reported by 8pm ET (4am Wednesday, GST) on election night, according to state law. Officials are aiming to have all votes, including those from Election Day, tallied by midnight.

Ballots from overseas and military voters will be accepted up to three days after the election if postmarked by November 5.

There were more than 21,000 such ballots requested, so an extremely close election might not be resolved until those votes are tabulated.

Arizona

Voting by mail is extremely popular in Arizona; nearly 90 per cent of voters cast their ballots early, most by mail, in 2020. Election officials in Arizona can begin processing and tabulating mail ballots upon receipt, but results cannot be released until one hour after polls close.

Any mail ballots dropped off on Election Day itself cannot be processed until the polls have closed. That is often a sizable number – in 2022, those "late early" votes comprised one-fifth of all ballots in Maricopa County, the state's largest – and can take days to count.

The initial results on election night should be mostly early votes, which could favour Harris, before the numbers shift toward Trump as Election Day votes are tallied. They could move back toward Harris in the days to follow as late-arriving mail ballots are tabulated.

Michigan

Since the 2020 election, Michigan has instituted early in-person voting for the first time and begun permitting jurisdictions with more than 5,000 people to begin processing and tabulating mail ballots eight days before Election Day.

Smaller jurisdictions can do so the day before November 5.

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