Claim:

In US elections, every vote before 2020 was counted on election night.

Evaluation:

In the days leading up to the 2024 presidential election, social media users claimed in previous years that: Every vote was counted on Election Night. One X user went as far as: list (archived) Every year since 1789″SAME DAY RESULTS.” The only exceptions were the 2000 elections – “(Eventually decided by the court, but the official count was still available within 24 hours)” and the 2020 elections: “A FULL WEEK FOR RESULTS.” There was more in the post. At the time of writing Over 4.8 million views and over 152,000 likes as of.

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

While some commenters on the post were incredulous, others blamed claims of election fraud for the change in 2020. “Are you kidding? “They had to distribute the votes by horse and cart.” a user wrote. “Voting fraud always takes longer than counting votes.” another user commented.

First we checked the accuracy of this claim We found this in 2022 This claim about past US elections is false and supports the false conspiracy theory that there has been widespread voter fraud in US elections in recent years. (We broke down some of these claims Here.)

According to Associated Press“No state announces complete and final results on election night, and they have not done so in modern history.”

Each state’s voting practices vary. For example, some prefer voting primarily by mail as opposed to voting in person. may affect when final results are confirmed. Like We reported in October 2024S.Countries have different deadlines for including mail-in ballots in the final count.

Looking at elections over the years, we found numerous examples where states were still counting votes after Election Day:

• Votes were still being tabulated in 2020 California, Delaware And FloridaTo give just three examples.
• In 2016, votes began to be counted in the days following election day. Arizona, Ohio And Pennsylvania.
• In 2012, many newspapers reported: Florida, maryland And Montana (just a few examples we found) We were still counting votes after Election Day.
• in 2008 Guard, Policy and other sources reported that ballots were still being counted in some states after Election Day.
• In 2004 we to create reports It was stated that votes were still being counted in some states after Election Day.
• The winner of the 2000 presidential contest was unknown for more than a month.
• PBS also reported There was no clear presidential winner at the end of Election Day in 1876, 1824, and 1800.

In summary, we consider this claim false because we found numerous examples of presidential election results not being certified on Election Day before 2020.

Snopes’ archives contributed to this report.