Mail-in voting provides a more convenient way for millions of Americans to cast their ballots. The method has seen a bump in popularity in recent years, reaching its highest level so far in 2020, as roughly 43 percent of votes were cast by mail that year. And eight states have adopted a policy to automatically send mail-in ballots to registered voters without them having to request one. 

The increased popularity of the mail-in voting method comes with the trade-off of the added time it takes to process and count the ballots, which means the election results will likely not be known on Election Day. Yet, this year, the counting of mail-in ballots may not take quite as long as several states have changed their laws to speed up the process after 2020. 

In addition to the time it takes to process and count the ballots, individual states have different rules regarding the deadline for receiving mail-in, overseas, and military ballots so that they can be counted. In several states, ballots can arrive and be counted after Election Day under certain circumstances.

Of the seven most competitive states in 2024, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada will count certain mail-in ballots, primarily military and overseas ballots, that are postmarked by Election Day if they are received within the week after November 5. 

New York and California, which are not swing states at the presidential level but could determine the control of the House of Representatives, both allow mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they are received within a week after November 5. 

Between the time it takes for election officials to process the ballot and the likelihood that ballots in several states will still be counted even if they are received after Election Day, possibly eroding a candidate’s lead, Americans may see plenty of reasons to be concerned about the accuracy of the results. 

However, data from decades of mail-in voting show that the risk of fraud is low. After the 2020 election, President Trump filed dozens of lawsuits to challenge the results. None of them were able to substantiate claims of widespread fraud that altered the election results. 

Several news outlets, such as Newsmax and One America News, that aired false claims about voting machines changing votes have faced defamation lawsuits and settled with the companies. Fox News settled with Dominion Voting System in a similar case for $787.5 million. 

Mail-in ballot verification measures

Before a mail-in ballot can be counted, election officials will check various verification measures to ensure it is actually being cast by the voter who sent it in. Those include verifying that the identification number on the mail ballot’s envelope corresponds to the identification number on file or matching the signature on the envelope with the one on file.

If there is an issue, such as a signature not matching the one on file, several states provide a process for voters to “cure” their ballots, letting them fix mistakes to ensure their vote is counted. 

Five of the battleground states let voters “cure” their ballots when election officials notify them of an issue, such as a signature mismatch, so they can correct it and have their vote counted. Wisconsin does not allow for ballot curing. 

Pennsylvania’s rules on whether voters can “cure” their ballots vary by county. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to take up a request from the Republican National Committee to ban counties from allowing voters to fix their ballots in the Keystone State, which could pave the way for a legal battle after the election over which ballots can be counted. 

Election officials also track the number of ballots requested and returned to ensure the numbers match up. States also have systems to track mail-in ballots to ensure an individual does not vote twice, intentionally or otherwise. 

For example, in states that automatically mail out ballots, voters are not required to vote by mail and can vote in person, which might raise concerns about people trying to vote by mail and then vote in person. 

However, officials are able to track mail-in ballots to see if they have been returned. If someone returns a mail-in ballot and tries to vote in person, then only one of their votes will count, and they might be referred for further investigation. 

Once officials have finished their verification of the ballots, they will be set to be counted.

When the mail-in ballots will be counted

In 2020, it took four days until election officials counted enough votes to provide a clear picture of who won the election. Part of that was the sheer number of votes cast by mail. 

However, another factor was the laws governing when the processing of ballots could begin, with many states not letting the process start until Election Day, thus adding to the time it took to count the ballots. In the four years since 2020, several states have changed their laws to allow election officials to process ballots and, in some cases, count mail-in votes before Election Day, but they are prevented from releasing the numbers until the polls close. 

In Arizona, election officials can begin processing and tabulating ballots mailed in before Election Day. However, they are prohibited from collecting votes dropped off in drop boxes as voting locations until the polls close, which will likely increase the time it takes to count the votes. 

Lawmakers in Georgia passed a law in 2021 that allowed officials to process and scan in mail ballots two weeks before the election. 

After 2020, Michigan changed its law to let jurisdictions with more than 5,000 people start processing and tabulating ballots eight days before Election Day, and jurisdictions with fewer than 5,000 people can begin on November 4. 

Election officials in Nevada can begin counting ballots 15 days before the election. 

In North Carolina, officials changed the law so that election officials can only start tabulating ballots after the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. This is a change from previously when the state let election officials tabulate the mail ballots before the polls closed. 

Lawmakers also changed the deadline to require mail ballots to be received by Election Day to be counted. 

Pennsylvania lets officials start processing and counting ballots at 7 a.m. on Election Day.

And in Wisconsin, the processing and counting of mail ballots begins after the polls open on November 5. 

Between changes to the laws to speed up the process of counting ballots and the expectation that fewer Americans will vote by mail, election officials are optimistic it will not take as long as it did in 2020 to have a good picture of who won the election. 

However, the vice president of law and policy for the Voting Rights Lab, Megan Bellamy, cautioned Americans against expecting to know the result on November 5, telling The New York Sun, “It always takes time for election workers to do this, so we will not know all the results in every election on election night itself.”

“I think Americans agree that when it comes to counting our ballots, it’s more important to be accurate than fast,” she added. 

While the results may not be known on the night of the election, there is a chance one of the aspects of mail-in ballots that raised a lot of concern in 2020 may not be as pronounced this year: the so-called “red mirage.”

In 2020, the MIT Election Data and Science Lab found that 60 percent of Democrats voted by mail, while just 32 percent of Republicans did. 

The disparity in how the members of the different parties voted, coupled with the prolonged counting and reporting of mail ballots, created a so-called “red mirage” in several key states where Trump seemed to be winning as the in-person votes were quickly counted and reported. Then, in the days after the election, his lead shrank and was reversed as the heavily Democrat-leaning mail ballots were counted. 

This year, data show that more Republicans are adopting mail-in voting. According to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, of the 15 million votes cast so far, 47 percent were cast by Democrats, and 33 percent by Republicans. 

While party identification does not guarantee how someone votes, the numbers could suggest that there will not be as dramatic a swing in vote tallies as in 2020.