Election officials should release the result tomorrow

Hi there,
Let me first present the analysis of the answer choices here.

A. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already: Incorrect. Here is the case of ellipsis. The verb to come after “have” is “released”. However, this word is not present in this form anywhere in the sentence. The word present in the sentence is “release” which cannot be kept understood.

B. release the result tomorrow morning, if not already. Incorrect. The “if” clause cannot have "should release" or just "release" as verb.

C. have released the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already. Incorrect. “should have released” is not the correct verb to use with “tomorrow”.

D. be releasing the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already. Incorrect. Same error as in choice A.

E. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already released it. Correct.

If any of the choices had “it” then it would have been incorrect. “it” is a pronoun and can only refer to a noun or another pronoun. “it” cannot refer to any action. If the answer choice read:

release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already done it: This choice would be incorrect because “it” is now referring to “released” which is a verb. A pronoun cannot refer to a verb.

If the choice had “so” instead of “it” then it would have been a correct answer.

So always remember, use only "so" to replace a verb, mostly after do/did/done/doing. Never use "it" to refer to an action.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha