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

His Election DayMichigan. This means we need to know winner of the US presidential race in this battlefield state before going to bed, right?

Don’t count on it! Or it may depend on what time you go to bed.

Voting in Michigan this year was a choose-your-own adventure of sorts. This was the second presidential election in which every voter had the right to vote absentee for any reason. For the first time in a presidential election, voters could vote early in person. AND on election day TuesdayVoters who have not yet weighed in have until 8 p.m. local time to head to their polling station. If you get in line by 8:00 p.m., you will still be able to vote.

When polls close at 8 p.m. local time.Election 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.

While results will begin to trickle in after polls close, the outcome of any race may not be clear for some time. It depends on how close the race is and how many voters return their absentee ballots on Election Day. Voters have until 8:00 pm Tuesday to return their absentee ballot to a box in their jurisdiction, local clerk’s office or polling place, where they can insert their absentee ballot into the counter (Detroit is the only community where voters do not have this option).

In 2020, the Associated Press, which tracks races across the U.S., could not call President Joe Biden the winner of Michigan until 5:56 pm ET Wednesday, the day after the election on November 3, 2020. AP has called races before all votes are counted based on an analysis of already recorded votes and other election data. The Free Press relies on AP calls.

In 2020 AP called the presidential race for Biden in Michigan less than 24 hours after the polls close. “And that’s my theme,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said when asked at a news conference last Monday about when voters could expect results this year. “We know that in 2020, two-thirds of our citizens voted from home and clerks could not begin processing those ballots until Election Day, and we also know that this was our highest turnout in state history. With all these factors and a global pandemic, we received results within 24 hours of the polls closing. So, based on this, I know that we will at least get them this time, right?”

Absentee ballots take longer to process than ballots cast in person due to the additional steps taken after a voter returns their absentee ballot to verify and record the ballot and then prepare it for tabulation.

IN 2020 electionselection workers in Michigan’s largest cities could spend On the eve of the election, return envelopes for absentee ballots are opened 10 hours in advance and the number on the counter attached to the ballot matches the number on the absentee ballot envelope.

But this year new law allowed many other communities to have up to eight days before Election Day on Tuesday to tally their absentee ballot results. It also gave each municipality the opportunity to tally absentee ballot results within 13 hours on Monday.

But one big city in Michigan – Warren — will not begin counting absentee ballots until Election Day. It is the third largest city in Michigan and competitive congressional district goes right through it. City election officials will have one day — Election Day — to count all absentee ballots, including those returned before Tuesday.

In 2020, disinformation experts warned that the gap between polls closing and election results being known could create fertile ground for the spread of false narratives and sow doubt about the legitimacy of the election process. The same thing could happen this year. As always, voters would benefit from verifying information before sharing it on social media by carefully researching the source, checking to see if the same information can be found in multiple places, and investigating whether the claim has been fact-checked.

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

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