How and When We’ll Know the 2020 Election Results

The 2020 Election is being held under unprecedented circumstances, which means election night is going to look a little different this year than it has in years past.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to high levels of absentee voting. The additional time required to process these ballots, both in Michigan and other states, likely means we won’t have confirmed results on election night. 

This is not unusual. According to The Associated Press, the news agency which NPR and WDET rely on for national election results, the organization has only been able to call a winner on election night by midnight EST in four of the last seven elections. 

WDET remains committed to sharing accurate information and will not declare winners in national and statewide races until The Associated Press does. For local races, WDET relies directly on information provided by the designated clerk’s office.

Learn more about how races are called and when results are expected.

‘We don’t speculate’: How AP counts votes and calls races:

As it has for more than 170 years, The Associated Press will count the vote and report the results of presidential, congressional and state elections on Nov. 3 and beyond. AP will declare winners in some 7,000 races. That way the world will know as soon as possible who wins not only the White House, but control of Congress and every state legislature. To do so, AP relies on a 50-state network of local stringers who have trusted relationships with county clerks and other local officials. At the same time, AP also gathers results from state or county websites and electronic data feeds from states.

Will we know who won on election night?

Millions of Americans have already voted but each state has different rules on when it can start counting those ballots. In some of the most critical battleground states, laws prevent the early processing of ballots. So on Nov. 3, officials will be tasked with running an in-person election while also working through the unprecedented number of mail-in votes. This dynamic is likely to delay election results. Americans should understand that this year results might come in later than usual, but that is due to a change in how people are voting during the pandemic, not malfeasance or fraud.

How soon will we know the US election outcome?

A shift to mail voting is increasing the chances Americans won’t know the winner of the 2020 presidential race on election night, Nov. 3. But that doesn’t mean the results will be flawed or fraudulent. President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised unsubstantiated fears of fraud involving mail-in voting, which is expected to be more widely used in the November election out of concern for safety given the coronavirus pandemic. Election officials in some battleground states have warned it might take days to count the votes given what they expect will be a surge of ballots sent by mail.