By Ben Wynd
With Election Day rapidly approaching, concerns over how the night will play out have been growing. With President Trump sowing seeds of doubt into the legitimacy of the results, many feel a cause for concern. There’s a chance none of these concerns will be alleviated due to the impact of Covid-19 on the election. The coronavirus pandemic has led to record numbers of absentee ballots being cast, accompanied by an enormous number of early in person voting sites being opened across the country. Over 21 million ballots have already been cast and that number is growing even more by the day. However, the concern comes in with ballot processing. Every state has different rules for when ballots can be processed and counted. Some states say absentee ballots can be processed 3 days before election day, and some can’t start until on election day. With Biden voters being much more likely to vote by mail or use a ballot drop box, political pundits are saying states with early ballot processing will give Biden and gigantic lead the moment polls close. Following polls closing, election day votes will start to roll in, and these votes are much more likely to be votes for President Trump, slowly erasing Biden’s large lead. After that, mail-in ballots that were postmarked on election day will be counted, but sometimes they get counted days after November 3rd. These ballots are likely to help Biden, but will it be enough to get him a victory? All states have different ballot processing laws, making it hard to do any analysis of how election night will look, but regardless, it will be a very interesting night.