How the ballot-counting rules differ across the key swing states ahead of the 2024 election
Each state has their own rules about how and when election officials can process absentee and provisional ballots, which can have a big impact on the results of a close race.
Four years after 2020 gave us an “election week,” voters are heading to the polls and wondering: How long will it take for states to count their ballots this year?
Several dynamics have changed since the last presidential contest: Many voters have returned to in-person voting after the Covid pandemic, and many states have rewritten their laws to allow election officials to start processing mail ballots ahead of Election Day. Those two changes are expected to speed up tabulation, but it could still take days to get a full picture of the election results.
Close elections take longer for news organizations like NBC News to call, because the winners may be decided by absentee and provisional ballots, which can take days for election officials to process and count.
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Absentee ballots sent in by mail take more time to process than votes cast in person, because election workers need to verify voters' identities and remove them from envelopes.
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