AJ Vicens for Mother Jones:

Imagine this: It’s the night of November 3, 2020 and eyeballs across the country are glued to television. As results trickle in, networks begin making calls in the presidential race, filling states red for President Trump or blue for the Democratic ticket.

In 2016, just 80,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania gave Trump his electoral college win. Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes are the biggest prize among these closely watched swing states, and are widely assumed to be a prerequisite to winning the presidency. And initial results, based on day of votes, suggest a winner. But over the course of the next 24 hours or so, hundreds of thousands of mailed ballots are counted, and the candidate who looked like the victor on election night has fallen behind. That candidate’s supporters—and perhaps the candidate themself—claims foul play or rigging. Chaos ensues. “If we don’t know for 24 hours or 48 hours…That is the ultimate concern.”

As things stand, election officials in the state fear Americans could confront this exact hypothetical this fall. As Rick Hasen, an elections administration expert and law professor at the University of California, Irvine, recently told me, its one of his “nightmare scenarios.” New rules this year allow all Pennsylvania residents to request to cast ballots by mail, an opportunity that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of voters will take up. Under existing state law, they cannot be counted, or even opened, until after 8pm on election night, when traditional polling locations close. In a state where Trump topped Hillary Clinton by just 44,292 votes, these ballots could be decisive—and the process could take up to three days.