WASHINGTON — QUESTION:
Why did some election results shift drastically overnight?
ANSWER:
Simply put, the vote wasn't complete.
In states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, the vote totals on Tuesday night were missing hundreds of thousands of votes, partially due to the influx of vote-by-mail ballots.
As votes were counted on Wednesday morning, Biden was able to take a lead in Michigan and Wisconsin.
SOURCE:
- Gary Nordlinger, politics professor, The George Washington University
- David Becker, Center For Election Innovation and Research
- Spokesperson, Pennsylvania Department of State
- Spokesperson, Michigan Department of State
- Spokesperson, Wisconsin Elections Commission
PROCESS:
The Verify team exists to counter misinformation and answer viewer questions about posts spreading online. On election night, posts about both candidates were spreading inaccuracies online.
For example, numerous posts suggested that there was something "fishy" going on with the vote count for the country. That's because early vote totals in states like Wisconsin and Michigan showed President Trump with a lead on Tuesday night, but by Wednesday afternoon, the races had shifted.
Many questioned whether the early projected winner calls suggested voter fraud.
"States that should have been called last night," wrote one user. "Are suddenly 'finding' lots of Biden ballots."
Others on social media wrote about "magic middle-of-the-night votes," that were found for Biden.
Why vote totals can shift
To find out what caused this shift, the team reached out to two elections experts, Gary Nordlinger, a politics professor at The George Washington University and David Becker, the Executive Director at the Center For Election Innovation and Research.
Both experts confirmed that this was not indicative of voter fraud.
The vote totals shifted simply because there were more votes to count. When most of us went to sleep on Election Night, there were still hundreds-of-thousands of votes not yet counted, including many absentee ballots, which favored Former Vice President Biden.
"This has been an unprecedented election for early voting this year," said Nordlinger. "So you still (had) hundreds-of-thousands, if not over a million ballots to count. The difference between when we went to bed and woke up this morning was further reporting of results."
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"There's no votes being found... these are validly cast."
Becker told the Verify team that a big reason for the delays was the influx in absentee ballots, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There's a big difference between finding ballots," he said. "And counting ballots. There's no votes being found. These are validly cast and are being counted and it's taking some time because a lot of them are mail-in ballots."
Adding to the delays is that some significant swing states plan to count absentee ballots that arrive after Election Day, so long as they're postmarked by November 3.
In Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for the Department of State confirmed for the VERIFY Team that they are accepting ballots up until 5p.m. on Friday, November 6, so long as the ballot was postmarked by 8p.m. on Election Day.
Other Midwest swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin confirmed for the VERIFY Team that they are not counting ballots received after Election Day.