Republicans caused ballot delays that they’re using to sow election doubt

Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin unable to process ballots until on, or just before, election day

Republicans are partly responsible for causing the ballot-counting delays that they're now using to sow doubt about election results, social media users are pointing out, amidst tensions following election day.

With the 2020 presidential election standing on a knife's edge, the outcome largely rests on the final count of ballots in a number of key swing states across the US.

Battleground states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump previously stole from Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, have yet to declare their official count.

Delays in the rust belt states are largely due to a high volume of mail in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the areas are not accustomed to dealing with such high numbers of absentee voting.  

In the wake of the delays, president Donald Trump and his allies have become increasingly frustrated, with the president falsely declaring victory and saying he is poised to ask the Supreme Court to halt all vote-counting.

Amidst the tension, some Twitter users have noted that GOP representatives voted against allowing ballots to be counted in these states before election day, exacerbating the delays.

“I said this earlier but to repeat: A big reason Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are still not done counting mail-in ballots is because the GOP legislatures in all of those states did not pass a law this year to start processing ballots well before Election Day, like others,” CNN congress reporter Jeremy Herb tweeted.

“A reminder if GOP state legislatures had allowed early counting in PA, WI and MI the results would have been out last night or this morning,” activist and author Amy Siskind posted.

“This delay was ironically because of Republicans.”

In September, a Politico review of ballot processing timelines in 13 battleground states last found that the three states did not allow election administrators to begin processing mail ballots until Election Day.

Some states had already changed their laws to allow absentee ballots to be counted beginning 14 days before election day following anticipation of difficulty in turnaround times due to the pandemic.

In Florida, another swing state, governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed an executive order signed during the pandemic to allow for the processing of votes to begin 30 days before election day, The New York Times reported.

Georgia, a state which witnesses severe voting chaos amidst the pandemic in this year's primary elections, passed a law to allow officials to begin processing absentee ballots 15 days ahead of election day, according to ABC News.

Since Politico’s initial analysis, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer signed a law passed out of the Republican-controlled legislature to allow the processing of ballots in a limited 10 hour window before election day.  

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, advocated for allowing for more time to process ballots and but said that the 10 hour allowance “is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough.”

In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Republican-led state legislature successfully blocked laws to allow earlier ballot preparations ahead of the election up until election day, meaning the states had to wait until 3 November to begin processing.