Very helpful analysis by Stephen Pettigrew, Andrew Arenge and John Lapinski of NBC News of the complicated patterns we can expect to see of reported vote totals. Some specifics:

North Carolina: Most of the mail ballots will likely be reported first, causing a blue mirage. In a change for this year’s election, in-person early ballots cannot be tabulated until after polls close on Election Day. We expect the in-person early votes to start coming in around 8 p.m. ET, a half-hour after polls close in the state. But the vote percentages will shift toward Republicans as in-person Election Day votes get reported over the course of the evening.

Georgia: Most counties will report their early in-person and mail ballots first, likely causing a blue mirage before the statewide results move toward Trump as Election Day votes are reported. After that, there may be a small shift back toward the Democrats, as the late-arriving mail ballots are reported from large metro Atlanta counties. Unlike 2020, Georgia counties are not allowed to pause their vote-counting process until they have counted all ballots.

Pennsylvania: We expect the earliest-reported votes to be dominated by mail ballots, including from heavily Democratic Philadelphia and Allegheny counties, causing an early blue mirage. Then, as in-person Election Day votes are reported, the blue mirage will turn into a red one, with the results tipping more Republican than we expect to see in the final margin. Finally those large counties (particularly Philadelphia) will continue to count and report their remaining mail ballots. This will likely shift the race back in Democrats’ direction.

In 2020, the Pennsylvania results at 3 a.m. ET on election night were about 7 percentage points more Republican than the final result. In the 2022 Senate election, the 3 a.m. red mirage was just over 1 percentage point from the final margin.

Michigan: We expect a slight red mirage in Michigan as smaller, more pro-Republican localities report their votes. The total vote count will likely trickle upward as small places report, and the size of the mirage will shrink when large, Democratic cities like Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor report. This year, Michigan voters can vote early in person for the first time in a general election, and clerks are now permitted to preprocess their mail ballots, enabling faster counting. Both of these changes may cause differences in vote reporting patterns compared to what we have seen in previous elections.

Wisconsin: In most Wisconsin municipalities, all modes of vote are reported together. This produces a slight red mirage, because smaller, rural municipalities tend to report more quickly.

A handful of large municipalities, including the city of Milwaukee, tabulate their mail ballots centrally and report them separately from their Election Day votes. The state will experience a red mirage until the heavily Democratic mail ballots from most heavily Democratic cities in the state are reported. At 4:42 a.m. ET on election night 2020, Milwaukee reported that Biden had received 85% of its 168,000 mail ballots. This caused Biden’s statewide total to increase from 47.3% to 49.3%.

Arizona: In 2020, about 70% of the state’s votes — mostly early in-person and early-arriving mail ballots — were reported in the first hour after polls closed. This generated a statewide Biden lead of over 14 percentage points in a state he ultimately won by 0.3 points.

As Election Day votes were reported in the next few hours of election night, the size of the blue mirage shrunk to about 3.5 points. It continued to shrink after Election Day as the pro-Trump, late-arriving mail ballots were reported. In the 2022 Senate race, the Democrat was ahead in the first hour by 19 points and won by 5. But in the 2018 Senate race, the pattern worked in the opposite direction, with the Republican ahead by 3 points early before ultimately losing by 2 points.

Nevada: Nevada will experience a red mirage until Clark County (Las Vegas) reports. In 2020, Clark’s first report came 90 minutes after the first county in the state had reported its votes. In 2022, this gap was only 10 minutes. Then, the first report in Clark may cause a blue mirage, which will shrink as in-person Election Day votes are tabulated statewide.

Why should we care about these shifting reports? See my earlier Slate piece, Why the “Blue Shift” Everyone Seems to Have Forgotten Might Be More Dangerous This Time.