WA Sec. of State Wyman: Could be ‘mid to late November’ before we know 2020 election results

Concerns over mail-in voting continue to be stoked by President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked it as unsafe and undependable in recent weeks. In the midst of that debate, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman is warning voters to be patient with election results come November.

Wyman: Trump war against vote-by-mail ‘a dangerous path to go down’

“The expectation is that on election night, around midnight, we know who the president is going to be — in 2020, that is simply not going to be the case,” Wyman told CBS on Sunday.

Because mail-in ballots in many states can still be counted if they arrive after Election Day, provided they’re postmarked prior to the day itself, Wyman expects many to come flowing in for days after most votes are cast.

Combined with potential postal service slowdowns, it could be days or even weeks before the nation knows who its next president will be.

“The expectation should be that we will probably not know the President of the United States until mid to late November,” Wyman predicted. “We want to make sure that whoever wins, it was indeed the candidate that the voters wanted — that’s going to take time. ”

President Trump has been vocal in his own opposition to mail-in voting, as well as any delays in results it may cause, claiming that it will lead to a “fraudulent” election.

Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has also made numerous changes to the USPS infrastructure in the last few weeks, which many experts worry will slow the timely delivery of ballots in November. The changes include decommissioning hundreds of high-volume mail-processing machines in all but one state, cutting staff hours, eliminating overtime pay for postal workers, and even removing mailboxes in several cities.

In Washington, which implemented mail-in voting in 2005, Wyman remains confident that results will be accurate regardless of when they’re finalized, touting the multiple layers of security that exist within the state’s system.

Washington state leads charge to get US to vote by mail in November

In 2018, the state saw just 142 instances where someone either attempted to vote twice or mail in a deceased person’s ballot, a fraction of a percent of the state’s 3.2 million ballots cast that year. The state’s system also withstood tens of thousands of hacking attempts during 2016’s presidential election.

“Washington was one of the 21 states targeted in 2016 by foreign actors, however, our security systems prevented any kind of intrusion,” Wyman told KIRO Radio in 2018. “In fact, we alerted the FBI to the suspicious activity. And our security systems have only gotten more robust since then.”

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