Of course they’re hopeful ... the “misplaced” boxes, sacks of votes in someone’s bottom desk drawer haven’t been counted yet.
I do like the way the Brits do their election though, where first they report the number of ballots they received. They post that number as official, and then they begin to count.
No extra boxes of ballots are found in trunks of cars or closets later on.
If we did that here, the 9th circuit or some such nonsense would say we were suppressing some minority vote.