Don’t expect to know the results of the 2020 election right away, warned a top official for the Federal Election Commission.
Commissioner Ellen Weintraub told CNN on Monday that there is a “substantial chance” that changes taking place to the voting process because of the coronavirus pandemic will delay election results for the presidential and down-ballot contests. She noted that the infrastructure to support mail-in voting may not be prepared to return results the night of the contest, set for Tuesday, Nov. 3.
“Let me just tell everybody: We’re all going to need to take a deep breath and be patient this year because, you know, there’s a substantial chance we are not going to know on election night what the results are, possibly for the presidency but maybe for many other races that are important to people. And that’s okay,” Weintraub said.
“If it takes a little bit longer to count all the votes accurately, that’s what we need to do in order to ensure that everyone’s vote counts,” she added.
Weintraub said that Congress needs to allocate more funding to states to help them prepare for an influx of mail-in ballots to ensure that every vote is counted and that the results can be returned efficiently.
“I think what we need to do is get more resources to the states. This is critically important, and it has to happen now,” she said. “The states and localities are going to incur huge extra expenses this year in order to have the kind of ramped-up absentee voting program that the voters are demanding, but also to provide for safe, in-person voting for those voters who choose to vote this way.”
