As expected, Election Day has passed and Americans are still waiting to see who will win in many races, especially who will be the next president. If you are a Biden supporter, there is reason to be hopeful. As of press time, Biden has won more Electoral College votes than Trump, and many of the remaining states that have yet to vote (open in new tab), including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, are leaning toward Biden. But this is far from a decision.

As one continues to watch the vote openings, it is clear that there were differences in the strategies of the various camps: Trump encouraged voters to go to the polls on Election Day, while Biden encouraged voters to vote early. Each state has its own election system, and each state determines who is eligible for mail-in ballots, when they are sent out, and when they are counted. The question now is when and how each state will count the mail-in ballots that are expected to favor candidate Biden. Since many of the potential swing states, like Florida and Texas, went to Trump early last night, all of the focus is on the same states that I discussed in my podcast Your Presidential Playlist (opens in new tab) this fall, namely, A Guide to the 2020 Presidential Election, a guide to mail-in ballots in just a few states, explained by the women who know those states best.

Pennsylvania is one of the key states that will determine the outcome of this election, and today (opens in new tab), Trump is ahead by about 500,000 votes. However, there are about 1.3 million absentee ballots, most of them from the heavily Democratic Philadelphia area. Mayor Paige Cognetti Scranton told me this morning Pennsylvania voters turned out in large numbers by mail, at drop boxes, and at the polls. Quite a few new voters showed up. Voting by mail is new in Pennsylvania. The tabulation will take time, probably until the end of the week.

Nevada is another state where the final electoral vote count will be critical. Unlike Pennsylvania, where voters had to apply for a mail-in ballot, Nevada's Board of Elections automatically sent out ballots to all registered voters. Barbara Sevaguske, Nevada's secretary of state (open in new tab), said she would not share data on how many ballots were still outstanding until Thursday because she did not know how much impact the distribution of absentee ballots had.

Earlier this morning, President Trump falsely declared victory (open in new tab) and said states should stop counting votes. This message from the President is intended to make supporters believe that mail-in ballots are not real, even though they are. (Military personnel, senior citizens, and even President Trump himself have voted this way for years.)

But the president is not alone in sowing seeds of doubt about the integrity of the election. Republican state and local officials are objecting to individual ballots. They have filed more than 200 lawsuits (open in new tab) in the past two years over how to vote, where to vote, how to tabulate, and how to register. Republicans have lost most of these battles, but with Trump's court appointments, anything is possible. In a battleground state like Pennsylvania, you may see a state or local official claim that a person's vote should not be counted because the person's signature does not match what is on file, the envelope was not signed, the correct ink color was not used, etc. The speed of this process will affect the timeline of knowing who won in key states still in the race and who will ultimately be the next president.