The following is the transcript of the interview with David Becker, CBS News election law contributor and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Nov. 1, 2026. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined now by our CBS News election law contributor and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, David Becker. David, good to have you here.
So each state- they have their own systems, their own timeline for poll closings-- CBS NEWS ELECTION LAW CONTRIBUTOR DAVID BECKER: Right. MARGARET BRENNAN: --and for vote counting. Some places, early votes already in, but when will we know results? : Well, we're going to know results, not because of the factor of how fast states are counting- look, the election officials in every county in every state are going to be working all night long trying to get the ballots reported out.
The biggest variable is how close the elections are, because when you talk to someone like Anthony Salvanto, who will tell you if it's really close, they just need more ballots in before they can make a call to say for sure the person in second place can't come in- can't win the race. So, in a lot of states where we haven't seen close elections before, we're going to see close elections in all likelihood, and it might take days. A day like- a state like Alaska in particular, where they're already well behind Eastern Time, they've got very remote voting all over the place.
They're going to bring ballots in from all over the place to count them. And if the election's really close, it could be several days. And everything that's going on in the election offices all over the country is under observation.
There are Republican and Democratic observers at all times watching the ballots counted, watching the mail ballots being opened, et cetera. So people should know there's nothing going on. This is just the normal process and elections might be close.
It might take a few days. MARGARET BRENNAN: And who are those monitors? : Usually people who are appointed by the parties, either the Democratic or Republican Party, representing candidates in many times or campaigns. That's the way it was in 2020.
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