The Public Interest Legal Foundation says that throughout the nation thousands of elections have already taken place in 2024. And the PILF's tally of tied and close elections continues to grow this year. In fact, the complete results of the database, including previous years’ elections, show 635 tied elections while the number of close results is 173.
PILF considers a "close result" to mean a one-vote difference between winners and losers at the final count.
Lauren Bowman Bis is Director of Communications and Engagement at PILF.
“We started this tied election database to kind of combat the narrative that we were always hearing from the left, that voter fraud, it happens, but it's so small it never matters, like, ‘we don't need to add all these election security measures.’ So we came up with this to prove to them like ‘no, a legal fraudulent vote could change the outcome of an election,’” she says.
While a statewide tie in any state is extremely unlikely, several recent battleground polls have come out tied between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, The Daily Signal reports.
How close are the battlegrounds?
There are very many polls to consider, but some of them at various times have shown Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan to be tied.
Bowman Bis says some close elections affect the whole country.
"One of the elections was actually for a congressional district primary for a member of Congress. So, a lot of these are very small local elections, like your local sheriff's race or your school board, but some of them are even bigger, like this is a federal office. We've had one in the past that decided which party would control the Virginia statehouse,” she said.
Missouri, with eight, has the largest number of ties or one-vote final counts so far this year, the PILF report shows.
“These elections do matter. Some of them are really small, which still matters. I mean, that affects your everyday life a lot more than some of these federal seats, but a lot of them are federal offices, too."
