Tracking the Final Count: America Votes for President

What You Need To Know

America’s election system faced a historic stress test this year, and, for the most part, it passed it.

While the Trump campaign has filed post-election lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada, few legal experts believe that they will ultimately affect the outcome of the race.

That’s not to say there weren’t problems. A federal judge is still pressing the U.S. Postal Service over its handling of ballots. Rigid rules over the processing of ballots led to slow counts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And the president continues to sow doubt about the election with baseless claims of fraud.

But things went fairly well considering the challenge: A pandemic unfolding in the midst of the presidential primary, millions more Americans asking to vote by mail in states that were ill-equipped to handle them, and partisan disputes over how to respond that spilled over into courtrooms.

In the end, a record-shattering 101 million Americans voted early, with nearly two-thirds of those from mail-in ballots. Nine states plus Washington, D.C. sent every registered voter a ballot, up from just three states in 2016. And voters tried out new things, from ballot drop boxes to drive-thru voting, that may become routine in future elections.

Another consequence of this year’s election was the first partisan gap over vote-by-mail, with Republicans largely following Trump’s lead in dismissing it and Democrats eagerly adopting it. That could hamper further expansion of the practice if it continues, and some Republicans fear it may hurt their own get-out-the-vote efforts in the future.