How late will you have to stay up for election results in Wisconsin?
If you're hoping to go to bed on Election Day knowing the outcome of the presidential race in Wisconsin, election officials have a pretty simple message: prepare to wait longer.
That's because of Wisconsin's increasingly razor-thin vote margins and recent surges in absentee voting. Amid nationwide political polarization, the state's elections are tighter than ever, with the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in Wisconsin being decided by less than 1% of the vote, or about 20,000 voters.
Here's what we know about the timeline of election results in Wisconsin and how long you should be prepared to wait for them.
When can we expect unofficial election results in Wisconsin?
It's important to note any election results we see in the hours after Election Day are technically still unofficial. Certifying the official results of Wisconsin elections is a multi-step process that will take several weeks.
However, media outlets like the Associated Press, are often able to call elections much earlier based on unofficial vote results. The AP calls a race only when vote returns indicate that it is statistically impossible for anyone but one candidate to win.
So when can we expect this call in Wisconsin? For down-ballot races, like local or county elections, this might be right after polls close at 8 p.m. For tighter, statewide races — including the U.S. Senate and presidential election — it can take a lot longer.
In 2020, the AP called Wisconsin for Joe Biden at 2:16 p.m. on Nov. 4, the day after Election Day — though the number of absentee ballots were especially high that year due to the pandemic and further slowed down the count. In 2016, the AP called Wisconsin for Donald Trump at 2:29 a.m. on Nov. 9, the early morning hours after Election Day.
Given the 2016 and 2020 timelines, it's unlikely Wisconsin will be called for either Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris before midnight on Election Day. Election officials seem to agree we'll likely have to wait until very late on Election Day or the early morning hours of Nov. 6 for unofficial results.
More: On first day of early voting, Wisconsinites cast more than 97k ballots in 'unheard of turnout'
In a media briefing earlier this month, Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said some localities have taken steps, like hiring more poll workers, to count votes more efficiently. Still, she added, accuracy takes priority over speed when it comes to counting votes.
"Election officials are not willing to sacrifice accuracy in order to be faster with results," Wolfe said. "So it will take as long as it takes to get it exactly right, and every step of that process, every ballot that's counted, will be counted in the public eye."
Why does it take longer to get election results in Wisconsin?
There are two main reasons that recent elections have taken longer to call in Wisconsin: increasing political polarization and the rise of absentee voting.
When vote margins were larger in Wisconsin, media outlets were able to "call" races for certain candidates after a smaller number of votes were reported because they knew the remaining votes were very unlikely to change the initial outcome. Now, however, Wisconsin elections are close enough that the media has to wait until almost all election results are reported in certain counties, said Ann Jacobs, chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, in a separate media briefing.
"People misunderstand past elections, because they say, ‘Well, I went to bed, and the elections were decided,'" Jacobs said. "The results came in because [the media] were able to call the election because the elections weren't close enough that we had to wait. That's just no longer the case here in Wisconsin."
The process in Wisconsin is also slowed down because several counties, including Milwaukee, employ a "central count" system — where all absentee ballots are sent to a central location and cannot be counted until polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day.
Election officials often post these absentee ballot results late in the night on Election Day or early the next morning, since they cannot begin counting them until that morning. This means the early election reports you see before you go to bed on Election Day may shift overnight, as absentee ballots in central count municipalities are tallied.
After his 2020 loss, these overnight results led former president Donald Trump to make false accusations of late-night "ballot dumps" of illegal votes. These claims have been unfounded, and in Wisconsin, local election officials are required to double-check results for counting errors or fraud.
“[Election officials] literally do look at every single ballot to make sure that they’ve gotten everything as accurate as possible," said Elena Hilby, city clerk of Sun Prairie, in the briefing.
Jacobs added that voters should disregard the "firehose of misinformation" around absentee ballot reporting.
“I’m trying to tell voters that this is going to happen," Jacobs said of late-night reporting of absentee votes. "It's not a conspiracy. We know it's going to happen because it happened in 2016, 2020, 2022."
What is the timeline of events on Election Night?
Though we don't know exactly when votes will be fully counted or reportered, here's a timeline of election night in Wisconsin, according to Elections Commission:
8:00 p.m. – Polls close. Deadline for all absentee ballots to be delivered to a polling place or central count location, as well as deadline for clerks in central count municipalities to report how many absentee ballots were issued in their locality and how many have been returned.
Immediately after polls close – Election inspectors start tabulating the returns, or results, for all votes cast at their polling place.
Immediately after votes are counted – Election inspectors report results to local clerks. They must also deliver all ballots, statements, tally sheets, voter lists and envelopes to the clerk immediately after polls close.
Within two hours of votes being counted – Municipal clerks must report results to county clerks no more than two hours after votes are counted.
Within two hours of county clerks receiving returns – County clerks must post all election results on their county website no more than two hours after they receive the returns from municipal clerks.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: When will the presidential election be called in Wisconsin?
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