Biden Appears Ahead In Mail-In Ballots. When Do The States Count Them?

 I've been getting the sense that Biden voters are going to vote early, for several reasons:

• They want to make sure their vote counts
• Questions about mail delivery time
• They don't want to wait in long lines on election day, perhaps get turned away
• They don't want to be exposed to COVID-19

Trump voters, on the other hand, are more likely to vote in person on election day:

• Trump's been telling them mail-in ballots won't be counted
• They want to be sure their votes get in
• They aren't worried about COVID-19

And now I come across this Tweet with a poll that confirms this:

Enormous voting mode gap in new ABC/WaPo poll:

Early in-person/mail (58%): Biden 70%-26%
Election Day (40%): Trump 64%-32%

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 11, 2020

Here's more information from USA Today (Oct 6, 2020)

"More than 5.6 million people have voted early in the presidential election, vastly exceeding the pace of 2016 as Democrats amass a commanding lead in returned mail ballots."

In Florida – where Republicans historically have a strong advantage in absentee voting – 497,000 Democrats have returned mail ballots, compared with 270,000 Republicans. In North Carolina, 206,000 Democrats have returned mail ballots, more than triple the 68,000 Republicans who have. Thirty-five percent of North Carolina Democrats who requested mail ballots have returned them, compared with 29% of Republicans. 

Even in ultra-conservative South Dakota, where Trump won the 2016 election by 30 percentage points, Democrats have returned nearly as many mail ballots (26,900), as Republicans (29,699). Fifty-seven percent of Democrats who requested mail ballots have returned them, a greater share than the 45% of Republicans."

A Republican analyst is quoted saying that the problem for Democrats is that more mail-in ballots get invalidated then in-person ballots.  It's true, you do have to read the instructions, put the ballot in the right envelopes, and sign the envelope, and often you need a witness signature.  And voting officials have a lot of leeway in rejecting signatures that don't match what's on record.  

How Will People React On Election Night?

When I started this post, I thought that there were states that would wait until after the election to count the mail-in votes.  And that this would lead to Trump taking an early lead and Biden votes coming in the next day or more.  

That would lead to Trump claiming victory and Trump supporters believing they got robbed when the numbers change in the following day or three.  

But before posting, I checked when mail-in/absentee votes get counted in various states.

I was wrong.  Mail-in votes get counted in all but one state on election day, starting early in the morning in some states, or after polls close in other states. 

Then there's 13 states where ballots can either be tallied starting before the election or set up to be counted, but not actually counted.  In all states, no tallies may be released before the closing of the polls on election night.  Here are the states that may start counting before election day: (All this information comes from the National Conference of State Legislatures.)

Before - no specific time

• Connecticut - "At the discretion of the local registrar of voters."
• Kansas - 'Prior'
• Ohio - Scanned before, but not disclosed
• Oklahoma - "Prior' with approval of Secretary of State.  
• "When counting occurs before the election, the county election board shall remove the election results storage media from the voting device, without obtaining a printout of results, and seal ballots counted that day in a transfer case secured by the sheriff until the time the board next meets to count. Results cannot be reported earlier than 7 p.m. on Election Day."
• Utah - 'Before'
• Virginia - 'Before'

Before - with a specific earliest date

• Florida - 22 days before
• Colorado - 15 days before
• Arizona - 14 days before
• North Carolina - two weeks before 
• Oregon - 7 days before
• Montana - 1 day before
• Nebraska - 24 hours before

On Election Day

The times range from 7am on election day until after polls close.

This includes all the other states EXCEPT Kentucky which says:

"Counting begins after all absentee ballots have been processed."

The Kentucky absentee voting pages says:  

"Mail ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, and received by Nov. 6."

Since they can't can't count mail-in ballots until they are all processed, and they can't process them all until they are all in,  this would mean, following the rules of logic,  they can't count them until November 6 at the earliest.   

So, only Kentucky appears to have a system which could result in the bleaker scenario I'd originally feared - where Trump votes would pile up on election night, possibly leading Trump to declare victory before most votes were actually counted.  And since Kentucky is a red state, it isn't one that the rest of us will have to wait for to know the results of the presidential election.  If Kentucky goes blue, then most other states will have gone blue already.  Though McConnell's seat, if we are lucky, might take a while to be determined.  

So it looks like my initial concerns about early tallies giving Trump a big lead are unfounded.  States (except Kentucky) will be able to count mail-in ballots by election day.  In some cases starting early in the morning.  A quarter of the states will be able to count (but not disclose the results) prior to election day.  And with so many mail-in votes already arriving at election offices, it would appear there won't be a huge last minute deluge of absentee ballots.  

I just dropped off our ballots at the drop off box in front of the election office.