The COVID-19 pandemic and former President Donald Trump’s assaults on voting by mail fully upended the best way folks vote in elections.
Democrats at the moment are extra prone to vote early in-person or by mail, whereas most Republicans wait till Election Day to solid ballots. And people voting patterns could make election nights complicated to onlookers, because the outcomes can look very totally different relying on the order through which these ballots are tabulated.
In states the place ballots solid on Election Day are counted first, it might result in a phenomenon referred to as a Crimson Mirage, the place Trump appears to be forward however his lead diminishes as early and mail-in ballots then get counted, resulting in a so-called Blue Shift.
Political analyst and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich describes the phenomenon on this useful explainer—and predicts that Trump will attempt to exploit it.
In 2020, Trump used these Crimson Mirages to attempt to allege fraud and sow mistrust about his eventual loss to President Joe Biden.
“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted,” Trump tweeted in 2020, as his leads evaporated and it turned clear Biden was going to win.
This yr, Trump’s allies count on he’ll attempt to do one thing comparable and declare victory earlier than sufficient ballots are counted to know who truly gained.
“Duh! Is the pope Catholic? There are few things in politics I would ever say you could make a firm bet on. That is one of those,” one former Trump adviser instructed NBC Information of the assumption that Trump will say he gained and perhaps even demand to “STOP THE COUNT!”—simply as he did in 2020.
Wisconsin, for instance, is anticipated to have a Crimson Mirage, as sparsely populated rural areas that again Trump are anticipated to report their outcomes first, whereas Democratic strongholds like Milwaukee tabulate their votes extra slowly, NBC Information reported. That can make Wisconsin look higher for Trump in the beginning of the night.
NBC Information additionally reported that plenty of swing states, together with Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia, are anticipated to report mail-in ballots and early votes first, which can make it appear like Harris has a big lead. These leads are prone to come again to earth as Election Day ballots are tabulated.
And Michigan is attempting to keep away from a Crimson Mirage by permitting mail-in ballots to be preprocessed, making it sooner for officers to depend ballots which are prone to favor Harris and keep away from a protracted Crimson Mirage.
Regardless of how votes are tabulated, if the race is as shut as polls counsel, it might be some time earlier than we all know the end result of the election, as late-arriving mail-in ballots may turn out to be the deciding issue that determines who wins the Electoral Faculty.
In a name with reporters on Monday afternoon, Harris’ marketing campaign stated that whereas they count on states like Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan to have near-complete outcomes by the tip of Tuesday evening, they suppose outcomes from different states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada may take for much longer to return in.
“We could not know the outcomes of this election for a number of days, however we’re very centered on staying calm and assured all through this era as the method goes via,” Harris marketing campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon instructed Reuters.
