All Votes Were Counted on Election Night Before 2020?
In U.S. elections, every vote was counted on election night prior to 2020.
In the days leading up to the 2024 presidential election, social media users claimed that in years past, every vote was accounted for on Election Night. One X user went so far as to list (archived) every single year since 1789 with “SAME DAY RESULTS.” The only exceptions were the 2000 election — “(Eventually settled by court, but the official tally was still available within 24 hours)” — and the 2020 election: “A FULL WEEK FOR RESULTS.” The post had more than 4.8 million views and 152,000 likes as of this writing.
1789 SAME DAY RESULTS
1792 SAME DAY RESULTS
1796 SAME DAY RESULTS
1800 SAME DAY RESULTS
1804 SAME DAY RESULTS
1808 SAME DAY RESULTS
1812 SAME DAY RESULTS
1816 SAME DAY RESULTS
1820 SAME DAY RESULTS
1824 SAME DAY RESULTS
1828 SAME DAY RESULTS
1832 SAME DAY RESULTS
1836 SAME DAY…— ERIK FINMAN (@erikfinman) November 5, 2024
Although some commenters on the post were incredulous, others blamed alleged election fraud for the shift in 2020. “Are you joking? They had to deliver the votes by horse and buggy,” one user wrote. “It always takes longer to cheat the vote than it does to count the vote,” another user commented.
We first fact-checked this claim in 2022, finding that this assertion about past U.S. elections is false, and bolsters the false conspiracy theory that there has been widespread voter fraud in U.S. elections in recent years. (We’ve broken down some of these claims here.)
According to The Associated Press, “no state releases complete and final results on election night, nor have they ever done so in modern history.”
Every state varies in its voting practices. For example, some primarily rely on mail-in voting as opposed to in-person voting, which can affect when final results are certified. As we reported in October 2024, states have different deadlines to include mail-in ballots in the final tally.
Looking at elections over the years, we found numerous instances where states were still counting votes after Election Day:
- In 2020, votes were still being tabulated in California, Delaware and Florida, to name just three examples.
- In 2016, votes were being counted in the days after Election Day in Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
- In 2012, multiple newspapers reported that Florida, Maryland and Montana (just a few of the examples we found) were still counting votes after Election Day.
- In 2008, The Guardian, Politico and other outlets reported ballots were still being counted in some states after Election Day.
- In 2004, we found reports that votes were still being counted in a number of states after Election Day.
- In 2000, the certified winner of the presidential contest was not known for more than a month.
- PBS also reported that there wasn’t a clear presidential winner at the end of Election Day in 1876, 1824 and 1800.
In sum, because we found numerous examples of presidential election results not being certified on Election Day prior to 2020, we rate this claim false.
Snopes’ archives contributed to this report.
