The centerpiece of Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election was his claim late on election night that he had already won because he led early returns in several key states. It was based on a highly predictable phenomenon known as the “Red Mirage”: since Republicans tended to cast votes counted first on election night (mostly in-person voting on Election Day), while Democrats were more likely to vote by mail, they have an artificial lead early in the count. Trump fueled this disparity by attacking mail-in voting all year and then claiming (with zero evidence) that mail-in ballots were somehow tainted. Cynical and premeditated as Trump’s deception was, it was effective among many GOP voters accustomed to seeing snap elections. It probably undermined confidence in the electoral system as much as anything Trump later said or did. This year, there are plenty of Trump heirs denying the election on the ballot who are perfectly capable of playing the same games he did with the perfectly legal and unusual vote counting process. It may not happen on the scale of 2020, since (a) not as many people will vote by mail due to post-pandemic conditions, and (b) the president of the United States doesn’t tell his supporters for months which voting method to use. But in close, tense races involving MAGA candidates, don’t be surprised to hear premature claims of victory followed by baseless claims of fraud or ballot-stuffing. The states where this is most likely to happen are vote-by-mail battleground states, where Republican lawmakers have barred election officials from processing mail-in ballots until Election Day (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) or soon after (Michigan). Postal ballots must be opened, verified and then sorted for sorting. Early processing bans mean those ballots won’t be counted immediately, until after the “Red Mirage” of voters appears on Election Day. As Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times recently noted, these are states that are rife with partisanship and MAGA hostility toward Democratic voters. So efforts to change mail-in ballot processing windows have been held hostage by voting restrictions that Democrats won’t accept: Delays in counting mail-in ballots this year could again give a misleading impression of a large Republican advantage in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin on election night, even if it’s not as lopsided as it was in 2020 . There are close Senate races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and close gubernatorial races in Michigan and Wisconsin. The “Red Mirage” is less likely to occur in states with a long history of mail-in voting and liberal early ballot processing policies, notably Arizona and Florida, which typically produce quick election night counts. And there could even be a “Blue Mirage” in Georgia and North Carolina, states that are fast counting early in-person votes that tend to favor Deep South Democrats. In Georgia, early in-person voting as of Nov. 2 was running nearly ten times the rate of mail-in votes. In North Carolina the ratio is greater than ten to one. Whether or not there is an early “mirage” sufficient to warrant a claim of victory, some states will have very slow calculations that give rise to conspiracy theories. This is especially prone to happen in the 19 states that allow the counting of mail-in ballots that are postmarked on Election Day and received by different later dates. These include 2022 Senate or GOP states such as Alaska, Kansas, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. States with universal and near-universal mail-in voting and liberal deadlines for receiving them often do not confirm results for several days after Election Day. This is particularly a Pacific Coast phenomenon now that California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii have universal mail-in voting. Alaska has a generous mail-in and ranked-choice voting deadline. If control of the House hinges on the outcome of the nine competitive races in California, the three in Oregon, the two in Washington or the at-large race in Alaska, it could take some time. An additional aspect in exclusively or mostly mail-in ballot states with an extended deadline for receiving mail-in ballots is the “Blue Shift” that often occurs in late mail-in ballots, which are disproportionately cast by Democratic voter groups and are usually counted last. In the 2018 midterms, several California House seats that Republicans held in the wee hours of election night eventually went Democratic, leading to some conspiracy theory mutterings from Republicans providing a template for Trump in 2020. In the end, it’s the close contests that most create the temptation for ill-supported claims of victory or retroactive allegations of undocumented voter theft. Democratic candidates who don’t want to be the subject of such mysteries would be better off winning big. View all
Subscribe to the Intelligencer newsletter
Daily news about the politics, business and technology that shape our world. Terms and Privacy Notice of Vox Media, LLC By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
