Former President Donald Trump recently told his supporters that the United States should have a system that knows the results on election night.

Calling for “swift and fair elections” on October 19 Pennsylvania rally, Trump said, “We spend all this money on cars, and then they announce, ‘We expect to have the results seven days after the election.’ If you had paper ballots, you get (results) at 10 p.m.”

Voting machines are not the reason we don’t know election results on election night. Also, paper ballots do not affect timing. The the vast majority of Americans they will vote on paper during the 2024 election, as they have for nearly two decades.

Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to our request for comment.

The alternative to machine tabulation is hand counting, which poses more logistical challenges. Ballots are often multi-page, including local, state and federal contests. Counting hands could lead to longer timelines for producing election results, which could violate state laws that require official results by a certain date. Research also shows that counting hands can lead to mistakes.

Recent social media posts are also spreading falsehoods about the timing of election results:

• Catturd, a conservative X account with 3 million followers, praised Florida’s quick count in a post which said: “Any secretary of state in any state who goes on TV today and says it will take a few days to count the votes is a cheat, a traitor and should be arrested.”
• A Post topics said, “BREAKING. The cheating has begun. The states of Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania have officially announced that they will not have election results available on election night.” (We have evaluated this claim False.)
• An Instagram post said, “The only reason to pre-announce that you’re refusing to count on election night is if you plan to use the extra days to cheat after you know exactly how many ballots you need.”

Taking days to count votes is not wrongdoing. State laws dictate when mail-in ballots must be received and when election officials can begin processing and tabulating them. In states with significant numbers of mail-in ballots or close margins, those laws affect how quickly votes can be counted and how quickly media outlets can project a winner.

More than half of all states require that mail-in ballots be received by Election Day, but about 18 states will count mail-in ballots if they are received after Election Day but postmarked on or before Election Day. Some state laws allow military or overseas bulletins received after election day.

States also enforce laws regarding the time allowed to check provisional ballots and allow voters to “cure” or repair their ballots — if, for example, they forgot to sign the envelope. In states with close margins or significant numbers of mail-in ballots, these laws mean some states take longer to post unofficial results.

“This is not an indication of any fraud,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, president of Common Cause, a public advocacy group. “All these processes are safe and secure and handled with great care.”

State law usually defines when local officials must finish counting ballots. This ranges from a week after election day in 15 states, including Pennsylvania, up to two weeks in 21 states, including battleground states Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Arizona is among nine states that allow three weeks, and a few states allow up to four weeks.

The next step is for states to certify the results, with deadlines in November and December.

“This variation and complexity of vote counting contributes to the confusion that supports rumors and conspiracy theorizing about the integrity of the process,” said the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. he wrote. The Center defines “rumor” as “the collaborative process of generating, evolving, and spreading rumors.”

“There are no official results on election night — there never have been,” Edward B. Foley, an Ohio State University professor of constitutional law who specializes in elections, PolitiFact said via email in 2020. “Election night counts are always only preliminary, pending certification (verification) of results under state law, which takes time. Every state has a law to that effect.”

The presidential winner was not known before midnight in 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004 and 2016, historian Michael Beschloss he posted on Twitter before the 2020 election. In 2020, the winner was not known until several days after election day.

We reached out to election officials in several battleground states to ask about the factors that affect when unofficial and official results come in. Here’s what they told us.

State law does not allow counties to begin opening mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.

In Philadelphia about a week before Election Day 2024, there were more than 140,000 ballots “in a vault waiting to be counted,” City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said.

Pennsylvania Republicans REJECTED a bill that would have allowed mail-in ballots to be processed earlier because they wanted it tied to voter ID requirements. Instead, some states, including Florida, allow mail-in ballots to be processed weeks before Election Day.

In 2020, Election Day was Tuesday, November 3, and the Associated Press reported on Saturday, November 7 that Joe Biden Pennsylvania won and therefore the presidency. (Results of news station projects based on their own methodologies.)

Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth, said on Oct. 27 CBS’ “Face the Nation.”” that 2020 was the first election for which Pennsylvania had widespread mail-in voting. Election officials now have more experience with mail-in voting and have purchased additional equipment to help process ballots and ballot envelopes. The percentage of Pennsylvania voters who will vote by mail this year is expected to be lower than in 2020, Schmidt said. In 2020, about 37% voted by mail.

This year, “there are several factors that I think will contribute to knowing the results sooner, even if the law hasn’t changed,” Schmidt said. But it always came down to “how close is the election before we know who won and who lost.”

Most voters here they voted by mail.

Election officials begin processing mail-in ballots upon receipt, and tabulation may begin after processing. The first results are made public at 20:00 on election night. However, ballots that are dropped into drop boxes on Election Day can only be processed after the polls close on Election Day.

“Because we have exceptionally tight margins, Arizona calls its races later than other states do,” Maricopa County reporter Stephen Richer said. PBS said in August.

AP, however, called the 2020 race in Arizona before some it called in other states at 2:51 am EST Wed Nov 4.

Arizona expects to have official results about 10 to 13 days after Election Day, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said on Oct. 27. CBS’ “Face the Nation.”.”

As in Pennsylvania, election workers in Wisconsin can begin processing mail-in ballots once the polls open on Election Day.

“I predict we won’t be done until after midnight,” Milwaukee Board of Elections Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez told a PolitiFact partner. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The AP called the 2020 race in Wisconsin at 2:16 pm EST on Wednesday, November 4.

Under a 2024 lawcounties must report early voting and absentee voting results by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. By 10 p.m., counties must report how many uncounted ballots are left. This could speed up the results, but the Secretary of State is not predicting when the unofficial count will be completed.

Local election officials are allowed to begin processing mail-in ballots — which includes opening envelopes and stacking ballots to prepare them for counting — Oct. 21.

In 2020, AP race call in Georgia was at 7:58 pm EST on Thursday, November 19.

Michigan’s 2020 unofficial results were finalized Wednesday evening, November 4, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Oct. 20 on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” The AP called the 2020 race at 5:58 pm EST.

A 2023 State Law means election officials can start processing mail-in ballots sooner, which Benson said makes her “optimistic that we could see results even sooner.” Cities with a population of at least 5,000 may process and tabulate mail-in ballots beginning eight days before Election Day.

Benson predicted this year’s unofficial results could be available by the end of Wednesday, November 6.

Most voters in the Silver State cast their ballots by mail.

Nevada counties may begin processing mail-in ballots 15 days before the election day. At 8 a.m. on election day, counties can tabulation begins early voting and postal ballots received before election day.

Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, typically has a high volume of mail-in ballots that arrive on or after Election Day. They are tabulated the day after election day.

The AP called the 2020 race in Nevada at 12:13 PM EST on Saturday, November 7th.

State law allows mail-in ballot processing to begin Oct. 1, but most people vote in person.

In 2020, the AP did not call the North Carolina race until 3:49 PM EST on Friday, November 13. But in 2020, the courts allowed mail-in ballots to be received nine days after the election. This year, the deadline for postal ballots is 7:30pm EST on November 5th.

The state board of elections expects more than 98 percent of ballots to be counted on election night. That means we’re likely to know who won the state on election night based on unofficial results, unless the race is extremely close or there are enough provisional ballots that could determine the winner.

Hurricane Helene, which devastated western North Carolina in late September, caused it some changes to sites and voting rulesbut the changes are not expected to affect the timing of statewide results. The Legislature mandated more early voting sites in two counties in western North Carolina.

This fact check was initially published by PolitiFactwhich is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check Here.