The 2020 election has been the most unprecedented election of all time. The pandemic has led to a series of factors that have not been present in previous elections, such as widespread usage of mail-in voting and millions of people choosing to vote early. The increase in mail-in voting has meant that the ballots have taken longer to count, with a projected winner not being chosen until the Saturday after election day.

The electoral college is a complicated process that takes time to sort through, but it is imperative that it is completed correctly. Some have discounted the electoral college due to the fact that it can lead to a candidate losing the popular vote but winning the election, and because it favors some residential areas over others, some people’s votes seem to count more than other people’s. However, the electoral college still continues to be used to this day, despite many opinions that it is antiquated and unfair.

Since each state has its own method of counting, the process sometimes takes longer in some states than others. This is clearly evidenced in Nevada, which took a notoriously long time to count the votes, since the courts in that state as in many other states ruled that the mail-in ballots could not start to be counted until election day. While Joe Biden was called as the projected winner of the election, the states still continue to count, even the ones that have already been called one way but still have small percentages of votes to count. Just today, Pennsylvania was officially called for Joe Biden, which prompted the General Services Administration (GSA) to start the transition process. Normally, the transition process would have started directly after the election was called by major news outlets, however since this race was so close, the Trump team did not want to begin this transition until after recounts happened.

The transition this year is especially important because of the coronavirus pandemic, which will require heavy planning and adjustment on the part of the Biden administration. This election has truly been one for the ages and it will be fascinating to see how it affects our elections in years to come.

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Check out the Election 2020 Political Advocacy Website. Students in the Election 2020 H block each picked an issue they care about and have created pages with information and resources about what you can do. Each page is different with a variety of resources (background information, posters, podcasts, videos, and web links) to help promote these causes.