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It’s called the “red mirage” or the “blue shift.”

It’s the recent phenomenon in which an apparent Republican lead just after the polls close on election night is erased by the counting of ballots later that evening or in the days after Election Day.

Former President Donald Trump has pointed to the red mirage to support his baseless accusations of election fraud, when in fact it is a result of the rise of mail-in voting and the often peculiar rules about when those ballots can be counted.

As most Americans went to bed on election night 2020, November 3 the end result was far from clear.

The battle between then-President Trump and current President Joe Biden was too early to involve the key states of Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The next few days would include dramatic hours watching the vote counting in these states. The vote count did not reflect a Biden lead in Georgia until early in the morning of November 6, when, as CNN’s Phil Mattingly showed viewers on the Magic Wall, small amounts of votes were being counted, affecting the very close election .

CNN was able to predict that Biden would win the election four days after Election Day, on November 7, but counting would continue. An analysis by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that counties won by Biden counted slower on average than counties won by Trump.

There was also a blue shift in 2016, but it was not decisive. As CNN’s Marshall Cohen wrote, when Hillary Clinton offered her concession, she was still behind in the popular vote. While the trickle of ballots wasn’t enough to get her into the White House, it was more than enough to give her a lead of millions of votes in the popular vote.

In 2020, the slowest states to count were places like California, which are heavily Democratic and where every registered voter receives a ballot by mail. That means there could still be a blue shift in the popular vote even if it doesn’t delay the sorting out of the presidential election results.

It’s important to remember that while news networks like CNN can predict a winner when it’s clear who will win, the races aren’t officially certified until later. Certification deadlines vary from state to state, but all have until December 11, 2024 to complete recounts and resolve disputes if necessary. presidential results.

There are indications that things could be moving faster in some key states.

In Georgia, a new election law means more people will vote early in person instead of by mail, which could speed up the process of counting mail-in ballots. North Carolina will no longer accept mail-in ballots if they arrive after Election Day.

The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks election laws, has an overview of potential sticking points.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, recently said on CBS’ Face the Nation that he expects the vast majority of ballots to be processed and counted in the hours after the polls close.

“All early votes and all early accepted ballots must have their results reported by 8 p.m. That’s 70, maybe even 75% of all vote totals will be reported by 8 p.m. on election night,” he said. But if the 2024 Georgia elections are as close as they were in 2020, the outcome may still not be clear.

Raffensperger was asked if it could take a week to determine the winner in Georgia.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “What we will be waiting for are the overseas ballots that come in by Friday at the latest, and those will be the final numbers. And we’ll see if that makes a difference in the total number of votes.”

Fareed explains why we are seeing a political realignment

Other states, such as the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have not allowed election officials to process ballots before Election Day. But the counting could be faster in those places too, with more experience and fewer ballots compared to the pandemic-era 2020 election. The Center for Election Innovation & Research has an overview of the different rules and timelines for processing mail-in ballots.

In Michigan, another key state where ballot processing can occur before Election Day, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was also asked by CBS how long it will take to count ballots. Benson, a Democrat, said she hopes to know the outcome by the end of Wednesday, Nov. 6. a day after the polls close.

“We will always prioritize accuracy and safety over efficiency,” she said.

With tight margins it can take days.

Pennsylvania’s top election official is Republican Al Schmidt, who recently told NPR that people should trust the system after polls close.

“In 2020 … we saw the window between the polls closing at 8 p.m. on election night and the race being called as a period of vulnerability as people tried to undermine confidence in the results,” he said, noting that in the election Ultimately, after all the votes were counted, the results in Pennsylvania weren’t that close.

The closest election may be some time away, as anyone old enough to remember the year 2000 can attest. A close election in Florida was accompanied by a flawed voting system that left some ballots with “hanging chads” up for debate.

The outcome of that year’s election dragged on for more than a month – 36 days, until the US Supreme Court halted a partial recount of Florida, effectively handing the election to George W. Bush. Then-Vice President Al Gore conceded on December 13 and subsequently became one of only three vice presidents to oversee the counting of electoral votes in their own defeat. Harris could be the fourth. Or the first since George HW Bush to oversee their own victory.

Just as no one knows who will win the 2024 election, it is not entirely clear how long it will take to determine the winner this year.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect that Hillary Clinton was trailing in the 2016 popular vote when she conceded the race, although she ultimately won a majority of the vote.