EDMONTON -- While Americans of both political stripes have expressed concerns about voter fraud and efforts to suppress the vote, arguably none have been as vocal with their concerns as the president himself.

Throughout the campaign, the president has raised repeated concerns about the authenticity of the record volume of mail-in ballots, warning that the U.S. “must have a final total on November 3.”

Speaking to reporters last week, Trump reiterated his hope that a winner would be declared on election night, suggesting it would be against U.S. law for ballot counting to go on in the weeks following.

"It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that's by our laws,” he said during an Oct. 27 press briefing.

But the president’s suggestion is wrong.

“That claim is patently false. States do not need to certify election results until mid-December (it varies by state law),” Renan Levine, associate professor at the University of Toronto's department of political science, told CTVNews.ca by email Monday.

Levine notes that the electoral college does not actually “meet” until the Monday after the second Wednesday in December to award their votes. In 2020, the meeting is on December 14.

Under U.S. federal law, states have until Dec. 8 to finalize their ballot count. They are not obligated to have a final official result on Election Night.

BUT ISN’T A WINNER ALWAYS ANNOUNCED ON ELECTION NIGHT?

Technically, there are no “official” winners on election night.

Media outlets "call" an election using partial counts and exit polls, which allow them to see how much of the vote is going to which candidate. When a call is made, it’s because they feel that projections from the most current results are strong enough to name one candidate over the other. It’s not an official result.

For example, the Associated Press (AP) ​says it will only call the election when they’re fully confident a race has been won, defined most simply as the moment a trailing candidate no longer has a path to victory.

In 2016, the AP didn’t call the election until 2:30 a.m. ET the next day, when Trump was still leading in the popular vote. Hillary Clinton went on to win the popular vote by about 3 million, but ended up losing the electoral college.

In the seven U.S. elections since 1992, the AP called the winner on actual election night four times. The other three times there was no clear call before midnight.

THIS YEAR IT’S MORE COMPLICATED

Election night tallies are merely preliminary and require certification under state law, which range from two days after the election in Delaware, to more than a month after in California.

But this year the task will be further complicated due to a record volume of mail-in ballots amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In some states, officials can begin processing ballots weeks before election day, removing ballots from their envelopes to have them physically ready for tabulation, speeding up the process on election night.

But in some of the most critical battleground states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, laws prevent the early processing of ballots. And without a clear picture from those states, experts say it may be more difficult to get accurate projections.

As Vox points out, these states could take days to tabulate their votes. And if in-person voting is more pro-Trump than mail in votes, it could give the false impression that Trump is ahead and lead to delays in calling the race.

For example, during Arizona’s 2018 senate race, the AP held off declaring a winner despite Republican Martha McSally leading Democrat Kyrsten Sinema by more than 13,000 votes because there were still thousands of ballots left to be counted.

Six days later, after an additional 700,000 votes were counted, Sinema was declared the winner.

This year, the worst-case scenario for those hoping for a speedy resolution is a repeat of what happened in 2000. That year, the outcome of the election went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered on Dec. 12 that a recount in Florida be stopped.