Amid an ongoing count and a deluge of mail-in ballots, professors urge patience

The United States doesn’t know who its next president will be.

As ballots continue to be counted in key swing states and President Donald Trump prepares to mount legal challenges over false claims of fraudulence, several Purdue professors in political science, history and communications analyzed the 2020 election.

Professors clarified when results may be in, commented on polls that predicted a ‘blue wave’ and weighed mail-in voting controversies.

When will we know results?

One political science professor estimated that results will be known by Friday, while another expected that results may take a week.

“When a state is ‘called,’ or determined to have its electoral votes go for a certain candidate, depends on multiple factors,” James McCann, a political science professor, said. “It’s a combination of exit polling and what’s actually reported and the trajectory of the state.”

Kathryn Brownell, an associate professor of history, said news network projections can be controversial, especially if done too soon. Given the massive quantities of information being calculated, networks can and have been wrong, she said. She cited the 2000 presidential election as an example, when Florida was incorrectly called and networks then retracted their announcements.

“What came out of the 2000 election is just an emphasis of not trying to race to be first,” she said. “Though results are taking longer to come in than in past elections, that’s primarily due to an increased amount of mail-in ballots this year due to the pandemic.

“We have to remember that what might make for good television in terms of immediately knowing the winner is not necessarily good for democracy.”

The Associated Press, who McCann said takes a more conservative approach to calling races, is the most common reference. AP calls races based on how many of the overall votes have already been counted and the historical tilt of the counties in question.

“A state like Indiana, for instance, enough is known about the general tilt of Indiana that you don’t need a lot of fresh information to hazard a guess about the way it’s going to go,” McCann said.

Nadia Brown, a political science and African American studies professor, said those working with AP aren’t newcomers to the state, but rather are experts with deep knowledge of its political climate.

Even so, Brownell said the projected winners and the certified results are two distinct things. It is states that certify final results, which can take a couple of weeks.

Brown said results may be known by Friday, but also offered a more conservative estimate due to the large amount of mail-in ballots postmarked before Election Day that can be received afterward in certain states.

“I’m anticipating perhaps going into a full week without knowing the outcome of this election,” she said.

McCann gave a quicker estimation, saying results should be known soon for states still counting ballots such as Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

“I would say by Friday we should have a pretty good read,” he said. “Though with the substantial number of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania, it’s going to be a slow-going process.”

Despite how long it may take to determine the results in Pennsylvania, if Biden is able to win in Arizona, Nevada and Maine, that combined with wins declared Wednesday in Wisconsin and Michigan would get him enough electoral votes to win the presidential election.

Many of the professors urged people to be patient, and to trust the process.

“The process of voting has been incredibly different … and I think that’s why it’s just taking a little bit longer to see the results,” Brownell said. “It’s important to emphasize that that’s OK. This is the process that is playing out the way it’s supposed to in terms of making sure that every vote is counted.”

Mail-in ballot misinformation

Though controversy has surrounded mail-in ballots, multiple professors said they are just as legitimate as in-person votes. McCann said Trump’s baseless opposition to mail-in ballots stems from the likelihood they’ll benefit Biden.

“In principle, a mail-in ballot should function the same as an in-person ballot, but it got complicated by a couple of things,” he said. “The first is that the post office had some clunkiness ... and then it got political. Donald Trump said that mail in ballots were, for some reason, less legitimate, again without providing any evidence.”

If mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania are postmarked by Election Day, they can still be counted by Pennsylvania law if they arrive up to three days later.

“There’s no evidence of any fraud or law-breaking, none was presented yesterday by the (Trump) campaign, so I don’t know what the argument would be,” McCann said.

Other professors commented on the lack of evidence for Trump’s claims. Multiple tweets of his have been flagged as misinformation on Twitter.

Elections are controlled by the states and are counted locally, which is where investigations into voting issues would need to begin, Brownell said.

Brown said Trump’s tweet Tuesday night in which he claimed to have won the election is concerning and threatens to undermine American democracy.

“This is a matter of the sanctity of our democracy, not a partisan critique,” she said. “A sitting president shouldn’t have a platform that undermines our democracy.”

She also said she’s worried about the results of the election, given the political climate is rife with polarization and resentment.

“I am anxious, because the country is so divided.” she said, “Some voters and some constituents might think that their party won, although the numbers don’t back that up, or that waiting to have all the votes counted might be seen as a partisan issue as opposed to a democracy issue.”

Were pre-election polls accurate?

Several professors remarked on polls released prior to Election Day that had suggested a ‘blue wave’ and a decisive Biden victory.

“I expected it to be different,” McCann said. “The forecasting models that were in use … they all predicted more of a blue wave, so around 8:30 (p.m.) when Florida started tilting toward Trump, that contradicted the forecasting models.”

McCann said he was surprised that the polling didn’t closely reflect the state’s results.

“It was surprising to see that the polling results were still off, maybe by as much as in 2016, because I thought that the sort of methodology had improved since 2016,” he said.

Polls take a snapshot at a particular moment, Brownell added, and public opinion can shift quickly during a presidential campaign.

“It’s important to remember polls are predictions,” Brownell said, “and the reality as it plays out can be very different.”