Don’t Expect To Know The Midterm Winners On Tuesday—Here’s Why These States Could See Delays

Georgia: The Senate race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker will head to a runoff election in four weeks if neither candidate wins 50% of votes (a likely scenario considering the candidates are polling within less than two points of each other), but counties are required to report absentee results by 5 p.m. on the day after the election, per a sweeping voting law change enacted in 2021.

Pennsylvania: The process of opening and counting mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania—where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) and Republican Mehmet Oz are in a tight race for the Senate—can’t begin until Election Day and will likely take days, Pennsylvania acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman has repeatedly warned.

Nevada: Several factors could delay voting results, including the state’s practice of sending absentee ballots to all voters per legislation passed in 2021, along with rules that require election workers to wait until the polls close to begin counting absentee ballots (ballots postmarked by November 8 can be counted as long as they’re received by November 12).

Michigan: Results are expected to be delayed at least a day due to a high volume of absentee ballots, Secretary of State Joceyln Benson said Thursday, noting more than 1.1 million absentee ballots have been returned, the majority of which are likely from people who historically voted Democrat, but they can not be opened or tabulated until polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Arizona: The state, where a large share of the population votes by mail, can begin counting absentee ballots ahead of the election, but Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who is also running for governor, has said day-of results are “just not going to happen,” she said in October.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin can begin counting absentee ballots once the polls open on Election Day, but results are not expected “until the early morning hours after Election Day,” Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Riley Vetterkind said in a recent statement to The Hill.

Alaska: The state could be one of the last to produce results, because elections are done by ranked-choice voting and absentee ballot-counting can’t begin until after the polls close on Election Day—if one candidate wins the majority, they are declared the winner and the process stops there, but if no candidate wins the majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second choice of voters who selected the eliminated candidate are reallocated, a process that continues until two candidates are left and the one with the most votes wins.