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When will we see the election results? What to expect in Michigan

Harry November 6, 2024

His Election DayMichigan. Which means we need to know Winner of the US presidential race It’s like a battlefield before bed, right?

Don’t trust this! Or it may depend on when you go to bed.

Voting in Michigan this year It was kind of like choose your own adventure. This was the second presidential election in which every voter had the right to vote for any reason. Voters were able to vote early in person for the first time in the presidential election. And Election Day on TuesdayVoters who have not yet weighed in must go to their polling place by 20:00 local time. If you get in line at 8pm, you can still vote.

When the polls close at 20:00 local timeelection officials may begin reporting unofficial election results. Four counties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula use Central Time, while the rest of the state uses Eastern Time.

Although the results will start to come in when the polls close, the outcome of any race may not be clear for a while. That depends on how close the race is and how many voters return their absentee ballots on Election Day. Voters must return their ballots to a drop box, local clerk’s office or polling place in their jurisdiction by 8 p.m. Tuesday; here, they can add their ballots to the tabulation (Detroit is the only community where voters do not have this option).

In 2020, the Associated Press, which follows races across the United States, could not say that President Joe Biden won Michigan. 17:56 ET Wednesday is the day after the November 3, 2020 elections. AP has races are called Before all votes are counted, based on analysis of previously reported votes and other election data. The Free Press trusts AP’s calls.

AP in 2020 Michigan presidential race called for Biden There are less than 24 hours left until the polls close. “That’s my rubric,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said at a news conference last Monday when asked when voters could expect results this year. “We know that in 2020, two-thirds of our citizens voted from home and clerks were not able to start processing those ballots until Election Day, and we also know that this was our highest turnout ever in state history. Due to all these factors and the Global pandemic, we received our results within 24 hours of the polls closing. So Based on that, I know we’ll have it at least this time, right?”

Absentee ballots take longer to process than in-person ballots due to the additional steps required after a voter returns an absentee ballot to verify and record the ballot and then prepare the ballot for tabulation.

inside 2020 electionElection workers in Michigan’s largest cities can spend 10 hours the day before the election, open the absentee ballot return envelopes and check that the number on the draft attached to the ballot matches the number on the absentee ballot envelope.

However, this year a new law allowed many more communities to have up to eight days to tabulate absentee ballots before Election Day on Tuesday. Each municipality was also given the opportunity to tabulate absentee ballots for 13 hours on Monday.

But a big city in Michigan — Warren – Absentee ballots will not begin being counted until Election Day. Michigan’s third largest city and competitive congressional district It goes right through it. The city’s election officials will have one day (Election Day) to count all ballots, including those returned before Tuesday.

In 2020, misinformation experts warned that the time between polls closing and learning the election result could provide fertile ground for the spread of false narratives and sowing doubts about the legitimacy of the election process. The same could happen this year too. As always, voters would do well to review information before sharing it on social media by reviewing the source, seeing if you can find the same information in more than one place, and investigating whether a claim has been fact-checked.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at: [email protected] or 313-296-5743. Follow him on X, formerly called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

Looking for more on Michigan elections this year? Check out our voter guidesubscribe election bulletin and always feel free to share your thoughts in some way letter to the editor.