If you only have a few seconds, read these lines:
- On the night of Tuesday, November 8, when the polls close, different media outlets will begin publishing projections of the election results in each state.
- In the hours following the closing of the voting centers, the local authorities will publish their provisional counts on their websites. These are preliminary data.
- Vote counting may take longer in states that by law can only begin processing mail-in ballots on Election Day; if the result of a contest is very close, the winner may not be known that same night.
Next Tuesday, November 8, is the last day of voting for the midterm elections in the United States. The process is already carried out through “early voting” and “absentee voting”, which are methods that allow participation in the elections before election day. But, when will the results be known?
On the night of November 8, when the polls close, various media outlets will begin publishing projections of the election results in each state. This is not always official information and may To rely on a mix of polls conducted at the exit of the polls and online, voter participation data and voting patterns, among other indicators.
For his part, In the hours following the polls close, poll workers and volunteers will count the votes and local authorities will post the provisional results on their websites. Voting offices have different closing times, but in general voting stops between 6 pm and 9 pm.
Los official results The definitive ones will be known following the scrutiny, which is the process in which it is verified that each one of the votes was counted correctly. After this, certification occurs, when the electoral authorities attest to the validity of the results.
If the result is very close, the winner may not be known that same night
Do you remember that it took 5 days to declare Joe Biden (Democratic Party) the victor in 2020? Be patient, because that can happen once more.
Joe Lenski, Co-Founder and Vice President of Edison Researcha company that performs exit polls for the main media outlets in the United States, told PolitiFact, an ally of Factchequeado, that it can take days, or even longer, for enough ballots to be counted to determine with certainty the outcome of some close races.
Charles Stewarta professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), also told PolitiFact that “the public needs to be patient” on election night.
Counting mail-in votes may take longer in some states
Some states process voting by mail before Election Day. However the Brennan Center explains that other states (such as New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), by law can only begin processing the votes they received by mail on Election Day itself.
“States that mightn’t start processing mail-in ballots before Election Day were slower to release unofficial 2020 election results. The same may happen in 2022 as well,” the Brennan Center noted.
The delay in the results does not mean that there is any irregularity
Mireya Navarro, from the Brennan Center, said in an email to Factchequeado: “The electoral authorities follow a series of administrative steps to ensure that the vote count and the final results of the elections are accurate and correct.”
In addition, the counting of the votes is done in public. Navarro explained that “various representatives of the 2 political parties, citizens and the media can observe the process and check that it is being carried out correctly.”
The final official results are certified in different ways depending on the state
In some cases, the Chief Elections Officer or the Secretary of State have this authority; in other cases it is the State Scrutiny Boards that fulfill this role.
Also, states have different deadlines to carry out the definitive scrutiny and the certification of the electoral results. For example, Delaware must complete the process before next November 10; while California will have time until December 16.
Five states (Delaware, Vermont, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Louisiana) have a deadline to complete the recount and certification process within election week. Another 22 states and the District of Columbia have deadlines during the month of November.
For their part, 18 states must certify their results in December; and 5 (Hawaii, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee) do not have certification deadlines.
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