Legislators mandated early results reporting to help address suspicions about ballots being counted in the dead of night, giving rise to the kind of conspiracy theories seen during the 2020 election.

This year, Georgia is poised to become one of the quickest-counting states in the nation. But that doesn’t necessarily mean voters will know whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump won on election night.

If margins are within a few thousand votes, Georgia’s choice for president won’t be clear until all votes are counted, including last-minute ballots from military service members, overseas citizens, provisional voters and absentee voters whose ballots are received on Election Day.

“We’re going to have the results so much quicker,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “We don’t think you’re going to have to be up to 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. We think that’s a good thing.”

Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Four years ago, Trump declared victory around 2:30 a.m. on election night, long before all votes had been counted. The following Saturday, national news agencies called the race for Joe Biden. He officially won Georgia six days later.

This time, even in a close race, the outcome in Georgia is likely to be known by a Friday deadline to verify missing voter information and receive overseas ballots — and possibly on election night if a candidate builds an insurmountable advantage.

A lead of at least 10,000 votes might be too large for a trailing candidate to overcome, simply because there won’t be that many ballots left to count. Election officials expect a total turnout of about 5 million voters.

“Reporting early is a fantastic change. We’ve all learned when there’s a vacuum of time, somebody’s going to fill that with assumptions or theories of why it’s taking so long,” said Jennifer Morelli, CEO of the Elections Group, an elections consulting organization. “If the margin is really tight and every vote is going to matter, then we need to wait.”

Under a new Georgia law, within an hour after polls close on election night, all in-person early votes and all absentees returned by Monday must be publicly reported. Then ballots cast on Election Day will be counted nonstop until each county is done, says a 2021 state election law.

“We’re making sure we have everything in place to meet those deadlines,” Fulton County Election Director Nadine Williams said. “We definitely want to meet those goals.”

Results on election night are unofficial, and county election boards will certify vote totals one week after Election Day, on Nov. 12, after all votes are counted.

Overseas and military ballots will be counted if they’re postmarked by Election Day and returned to election offices before 5 p.m. on Nov. 8. Absentee ballots must be received by election offices before polls close on Election Day.

During the 2020 election, Georgia’s results came in more slowly, in large part because of a record number of absentee ballots cast during the pandemic — 26% of the total turnout.

Georgia reported nearly 80% of all votes by midnight on election night in 2020, putting it in the middle of the pack nationwide, said Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It took two more days before 99% of the state’s votes were counted.

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This year, in-person early votes are expected to account for about 70% of the turnout, and those votes will be reported an hour after polls close. Absentee ballots will make up roughly 5% of the turnout, and most of them will be reported at the same time.

With fewer absentee ballots, which heavily favored Biden in 2020, there’s likely to be less of a “blue shift” on election night as more ballots are counted, Stewart said. But because it takes longer for urban counties with large numbers of Democratic voters to count so many ballots, Harris could make gradual gains as results pour in.

Stewart says he doubts quick results reporting will ease concerns among supporters of the losing candidate.

“The deniers will deny,” he said. “If you’re dissatisfied about your candidate losing and you believe the system tends toward fraud, you’re going to believe that, even if all the results are reported simultaneously.”

Speedy reporting of early votes also was made possible by Georgia laws that allowed election offices to begin verifying and scanning absentee ballots three Mondays before Election Day, and in-person early votes can begin to be tabulated at 7 a.m. on Election Day. No results can be made public until polls close.

Other swing states, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will be slower because they don’t allow much preprocessing of ballots before Election Day.

The fastest results in 2020 came from Iowa, Florida and North Carolina, Stewart’s research showed.

“Slower vote counting creates an information void, and that is when false narratives and conspiracy theories can really take hold,” said Rachael Dean Wilson of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, an organization focused on countering manipulation and interference in democracies. “Georgia lawmakers looked at this and said, ‘We want to close the gap in reporting.’ It’s a really smart way to increase confidence.”

How to watch election results

Election results will be updated on AJC.com and sos.ga.gov after polls close Tuesday.

Millions of early and absentee votes are expected to be reported soon after 8 p.m., and Election Day results will be reported as they’re tabulated.

The winner of the presidential race won’t necessarily be known on election night if the results are close.

Results become official when county election boards certify them Nov. 12 and when Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certifies statewide results Nov. 22.