Yes, we did. How long did it take for us to know Trump won the 2016 election?
Less than 24 hours after voting began.
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/08/politics/election-day-2016-highlights/index.html
How long for Obama in 2012? Voting started the morning of November 6 and at 1am the next day, Romney conceded.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83460.html%3F_amp%3Dtrue
Obama 2008? Election Day was November 4th in 2008, and almost by noon the next day we knew who won.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2008/11/05/mccain-concedes-presidency
Bush 2004? Election Day was the second and again an hour before noon the next day, we knew.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_2004_presidential_campaign#:~:text=Bush%20in%20the%20general%20election,to%20have%20been%20elected%20president.
But in 2000? Gore conceded on the 13th of November. About 6 days after Election Day. It took a long while for Florida, a key swing state, to count and because neither Gore nor Bush had enough electoral votes to win at the time, it took days to call it. And because it was so close, additional weeks to verify it to make sure every vote was counted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida
Now, how long did it take to confirm Biden’s win?
About 4 days but most media had called it long before that. And that was mostly down to counting all the hand mailed ballots which, in an era where votes are cast and counted by independent electronic machines, took time to count in addition to the additional regulations and protections by lawmakers to ensure those ballots counted were legal and legitimate. The high number of mail-in ballots mostly due to the ongoing pandemic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election_(November_2020%E2%80%93January_2021)
Should also mention it takes almost a month to count and verify all the votes. We call an election in a state once the amount of votes counted exceeds a percentage where the other candidate has no chance to win. So not all votes are counted within 24 hours.