EXPLAINER: From 1800, a lesson in delayed election results

The tempestuous election of 2020 has been rife with predictions of confusion and cataclysm, with warnings that a contested battle could last well into December. It’s happened before. Take 1800, for example. The two parties were in bitter opposition. The Federalists nominated John Adams for a second term; the Republicans chose Thomas Jefferson. The voting, as retold by historian Jill Lepore in “These Truths: A History of the United States,” did not take place on a single day &md