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Quick Take
Some states were still counting ballots weeks after Election Day in accordance with their regulations, state officials and an election law expert said. But an Instagram post misleadingly implied that the ongoing vote counts were evidence of some unspecified election malfeasance.
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The 2024 presidential election was called by the Associated Press for President-elect Donald Trump the day after the Nov. 5 general election. Trump won 312 electoral college votes, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 226.
Results announced by the media on Election Day or shortly after are projections, and always have been, factoring in a combination of the votes that had been reported, exit polling and other statistics, Justin Levitt, an elections law expert at Loyola Marymount University’s law school, told us in an email. But they are not official election results, which cannot occur until all eligible votes are counted. Most state laws give local election officials two to three weeks to officially certify election returns, Levitt said.
“In the nation’s history, there has literally never been an official presidential election result on Election Night,” Levitt said. “Local election officials aren’t legally permitted to decide elections based on projections, which is why we don’t just award the election to the person who’s leading in the polls.”
But Trump and other Republicans and conservative commentators, such as Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, for years have made false and unfounded accusations of cheating by the Democrats in presidential elections.
Trump, for instance, repeatedly made baseless, false and misleading claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” citing conspiracies involving the Department of Justice, Dominion Voting Systems and local election officials, as we’ve previously written.
After the 2024 election, a Nov. 18 Instagram post shared a screenshot of a post on X that said: “Arizona is still counting votes… Georgia is still counting votes… California is still counting votes… Pennsylvania is still counting votes… North Carolina is still counting votes… CAN YOU SEE WHAT THEY ARE DOING?”
The Instagram post received nearly 13,000 likes, and some comments on the post claimed it was evidence of cheating and election fraud.
The original post on X also came from an account, @CharlieKNews, that named itself Charlie Kirk News, using a photo of Kirk as its avatar. The post has since been taken down. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point Action, the political advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, told us in an email that the post from @CharlieKNews “is not run by Charlie Kirk or his team. It’s a fan account and we have no idea what they mean.”
Impact Possible on Downballot Races
Election officials are required to count each valid ballot, Levitt said. That process is relatively quick for most ballots but can be slower for mail, overseas and provisional ballots that require some additional work in determining whether they are actually valid, he said.
There were still hundreds of thousands of ballots that needed to be counted as of Nov. 22, the majority of which were overseas ballots or checks on provisional ballots. “We’re very much on track for that to happen on time, exactly as it’s supposed to,” Levitt said.
There was a momentary delay in the counting of votes in Pennsylvania due to a legal dispute, in which the state Supreme Court on Nov. 18 directed county election officials not to count some mail-in ballots that arrived on time but were in envelopes that included handwritten dates that were incorrect.
“Outside of that, there’s no ‘delay’ at all,” said Levitt, referring to the counting of votes nationwide throughout the general election.
There is also “no prospect” that the number of outstanding ballots that still need to be counted will change the overall presidential election winner in any state, Levitt said.
However, the uncounted ballots could decide other downballot races with smaller vote margins. That includes the race for California’s 45th Congressional District where, as of Nov. 22, Democratic candidate Derek Tran was leading Republican candidate Michelle Steel by just a few hundred votes.
“These margins are exactly why we take the time to count every valid ballot, rather than just declaring a result that we’re not sure about,” Levitt said. “Local election officials in all of the states are working methodically through a very careful process to get the final count right, exactly as they should be.”
Election Offices Follow State Laws
Election offices in each of the five states listed in the social media post have all said either to us or in publicly available posts, press releases or videos that their ballot-counting processes are moving forward as anticipated and in accordance with their respective state laws.
“Georgia has been done [counting its ballots] for over a week now,” Robert Sinners, spokesperson for Georgia’s secretary of state, told us in an email. He said Georgia’s deadline for counties to complete their counting and certify their votes was Nov. 12 — six days before the Nov. 18 Instagram post.
The state launched an audit of the presidential election on Nov. 14 that hand-counted randomly selected ballots in each of Georgia’s 159 counties. The state announced the results of the audit on Nov. 20.
“Election denialism needs to end, now,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told us in a statement. “We are a country of laws and principles, not of men and personalities. Do your job! Follow the law. Accept election results or lose your country.”
It typically takes about 10 to 13 days for Arizona to tabulate all its ballots, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said in a Nov. 16 video posted on X.
As of the morning of Nov. 19, about 6,000 ballots needed to be counted in Arizona’s Yuma County, JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state, told us in an email. The office was anticipating a recount for one legislative district, and there may be other local races that could require recounts that would be conducted at the county level, Martin added.
As of Nov. 14, California needed to process and verify eligibility of about 1.8 million ballots, said Secretary of State Shirley Weber during a press conference that day. By Nov. 22, the estimated number of uncounted ballots was down to more than 315,000, according to the secretary of state’s website.
The lengthy timeline for processing votes in California was anticipated due to the state’s rules and regulations, Weber said.
California will receive its first actual count from all of the state’s 58 counties on Dec. 6, Weber said. The secretary of state will then have a week to certify the state’s results on Dec. 13.
“California’s election process is designed with a core commitment to recognizing and basically accurately counting each and every eligible vote that comes into our office,” Weber said. “This approach involves a series of rigorous checks and safeguards, including signature verification, machine audits and manual counts.”
There was no delay in counting the votes in Pennsylvania, Matt Heckel, press secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of State, told us in an email. Final election results have never been finalized on election night since “processing and counting millions of ballots takes time,” Heckel said.
Official results in Pennsylvania will be certified after all ballots have been adjudicated, including provisional, absentee and mail ballots that need identifications verified, as well as absentee ballots from military and overseas civilian voters, Heckel said.
By Nov. 12, when Pennsylvania counties reported their unofficial returns, 60,366 provisional ballots and 20,155 mail-in and absentee ballots remained uncounted. County boards also needed to make final resolutions about which of those ballots are valid and eligible, Heckel added.
Heckel said the Department of State wouldn’t have any updated uncounted ballot numbers until Nov. 25, when county elections boards are required to certify their returns with the secretary of the commonwealth.
By Nov. 15, final votes had been counted in nearly all of North Carolina’s counties, Patrick Gannon, spokesperson for the state’s board of elections, told us in an email.
However, as of Nov. 19, some counties were still going through their research on provisional ballots to determine which should be counted, he said. And a couple of counties still needed to “reopen their canvasses” to remove ballots in cases where early voters were deemed ineligible to vote because they did not confirm their address when they registered, Gannon said.
North Carolina state law requires provisional ballots and some absentee ballots to be counted after Election Day and before the county canvass – the day county elections boards meet to certify their results – which occurred 10 days after the election on Nov. 15, Gannon said.
“It’s impossible to count eligible ballots that election officials do not have yet,” he said.
A few contests throughout the state are eligible for recounts. That includes local races and the race for North Carolina’s State Supreme Court seat, in which incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs held a roughly 600-vote lead over Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin.
But, according to Gannon, the number of uncounted ballots is not enough to flip any contest.
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