How the much-litigated ballot deadlines affected the US election

This article is made possible through Votebeat, a non-partisan reporting project covering local election integrity and voting access.

Americans shattered records for voting by mail in many states in the 2020 presidential election, a phenomenon that tested existing election laws, new pandemic-related regulations, postal service capacity, voter education efforts and voters’ own resolve.

Some states had more wiggle room in accepting the mail-in votes than others, allowing ballots that were postmarked by election day to come in later, anywhere from the following day to nearly three weeks after. These grace periods became a highly contentious and politicized aspect of the election. The Trump campaign and its allies challenged them all the way up to the US supreme court as part of an overall campaign questioning the legitimacy of mail-in voting.

Grace periods for mail-in ballots also became more significant as it became clear that the vote’s results would not be even close to final on election day and that the country would indeed experience the “big blue shift” that experts predicted.

But what are the implications of letting ballots arrive late? A state-by-state look at the turnout data shows that the numbers weren’t large but were substantial enough to potentially sway a local race or a tighter election. It also shows a messy national picture, with chaotic regulations and poor record-keeping.

Late-arriving ballots, by the numbers

Twenty-two states had grace periods for late-arriving ballots this election – some already had the provision written into their laws, some implemented special extensions just for the pandemic. Five states allowed ballots to arrive three days after election day (until 6 November) and five others allowed a full week (until 10 November). There is no uniform system in the United States for tracking data on ballots, and some of the data Votebeat collected are merely estimates.

In Pennsylvania, after a partisan legal battle, the US supreme court (Scotus) allowed election officials to keep accepting absentee ballots over a three-day extension. About 10,000 votes arrived in that period, according to the secretary of state’s office. Those ballots are still subject to a lawsuit pending at Scotus and are sequestered from official results. They made up about 0.4% of the total mail-in vote. In Massachusetts, which also had a three-day rule, 3,403 votes came in, or 0.2% of the mail-in vote, the secretary of state’s office told Votebeat.