because of the pandemic + not allowing counting sooner in some places + super close races in a few states = the long delay.

For example, Georgia didn't change a thing this election - they've had no excuse absentee for a while (too lazy to look up how long, but it's not new for COVID), and voters still had to request an absentee ballot (no mailing to all voters), but the higher volume of absentee votes from the pandemic and the fact that it's actually close there is the problem.

The odds of all those things happening again at the same time aren't huge, and hopefully the states learn from how it went this time to make improvements. The delay in calling it sucks, but without the higher mail-in vote numbers this year, decent chance Trump would have won, so I'll take the delay.