Analysts have warned for days that, given the amount of close races around the country this election, the 218-seat threshold needed for a House majority may not be known for several days. Results for the presidential election, however, might also meet the same fate as results in seven battleground states are expected to go down to the wire.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Michigan's Secretary of State Jocely Benson are both quoted by CNN, expressing their optimism that results might not take as long to be tallied as they were in 2020, when almost four full days went by before Joe Biden was announced as the winner.
Shapiro stated that about 1 million fewer mail-in ballots were requested this year than during the Covid-19 pandemic and that, combined with a state's Supreme Court ruling in August which ruled expediting election-related cases, he feels confident results in the battleground state will be delivered more quickñy. "All of that together should speed up the count," Shapiro added.
Meanwhile, Benson told CNN that, even though voters are on track to match the state's highest election turnout on record, she expects "results to be sooner than they were in 2020, which was midday on Wednesday."
In the event of a close race — with the two candidates separated by fewer than 25,000 votes — Michigan law encourages the state board to expedite its canvass "as soon as practicable," as a recent CBS News report explained. Furthermore, if the candidates are within 2,000 votes, an automatic recount is triggered, but it must be completed within 30 days of the election.
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