This article was originally published on PolitiFact.
If you go to bed on election night and don’t know who won a midterm congressional race, that’s okay. And if you wake up the next morning and find that a candidate who was behind hours earlier has since taken the lead, that’s also normal.
This will not stop some politicians and their allies from spreading false information during vote counting.
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In past elections, elected leaders, candidates, and social media users spread lies that “late night” arrivals of “ballot dropoffs” or “suitcases” of ballots were signs of fraud, or that only Democratic-run cities took days to count votes.
Some states, like Florida, often complete the majority of their unofficial counts in fewer hours or days than elsewhere. But it’s not a sign of fraud if other places need more time.
“States are neither fast nor slow, they count and certify all results according to the laws passed by their state legislature,” said election technology and cybersecurity expert Ryan Macias. “What is fast or slow is how quickly the media can gather enough evidence to confidently predict the winner, which is usually based on the margin of victory.”
Voters can contribute to the smooth running of elections. People voting by mail, for example, should not wait until the last minute to cast their ballot. Many election offices offer secure drop boxes to expedite the return of mailed ballots. The U.S. Postal Service recommends that voters mail their ballots at least one week before the deadline.
“There are always a handful of very close Senate and House races in which the winner won’t be determined for several days or, in the cases of Alaska and California, up to a week or two,” said Joe Lenski, executive vice president of SSRS, which runs a national exit poll on Election Day.
Control of the U.S. Senate could come down to a handful of close races with a large number of ballots to count.
No state is required to complete the official count on election night. State laws set deadlines for certifying final results, often weeks later.
Here’s a look at what could influence the unofficial results schedule.
Close margins
Polls and nonpartisan analyzes show many U.S. Senate races are competitive, including in Michigan, Maine, Iowa, Alaska, Kansas and Texas. If the count is close in the first hours or even days after polls close, media outlets may have to wait for officials to count more ballots until reporters can project a winner. Some close races could end in a recount conducted days or weeks later. In 2018, three statewide races in Florida were settled in recounts.
Candidates who come out on top at the start of the vote count may not win. In 2020, Donald Trump had won more than 100,000 votes in Wisconsin early in the night, but the situation quickly changed after Milwaukee’s central count finished processing mail-in votes around 3:30 a.m. local time. The late boost from Milwaukee’s Joe Biden was expected, especially because Wisconsin’s mail-in ballots tend to skew Democratic.
When votes are counted — and the political leanings voters in those jurisdictions tend to have — vary by state.
Volume of postal votes and receipt times
Processing mail-in ballots takes time. Election workers must verify the identity of voters, for example by comparing signatures on envelopes with registration records.
Most states, including Florida, require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day. But some states allow voters to return their ballots later, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
In California, where elections are almost exclusively by mail, ballots postmarked on Election Day and received up to a week later are allowed. The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the right of states to have such a policy, a blow to Trump, who says he wants a faster process and has spread lies about California’s vote count.
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Ohio passed a law in 2025 that says most mail-in ballots must be received by the close of polls on Election Day; previously it had a four-day grace period.
In California, counties must count and report the results of most ballots by the 13th day after the election. There are some exceptions to this rule, including for provisional ballots and absentee ballots requiring signature verification; election officials should finish counting them within 30 days of the election.
In U.S. House elections, there are always a handful of precincts that aren’t called on election night or the day after, mostly in California, Lenski said.
Last Minute Absentee Ballot Submissions: A Michigan Case Study
When thousands of voters procrastinate until the last minute to send in their absentee ballots, it takes more time for election workers to process and count those ballots. In past elections, some people spread lies about such “delays” in places like Detroit, pointing to vans with ballots arriving late at night as evidence of foul play.
The winner of the U.S. Senate race may not be known until officials are able to count nearly all of Detroit’s ballots.
With more than half a million voters, Detroit election officials anticipate they will release results from about 95% of ballots on election night.
“This is an estimate, not a deadline or statutory guarantee,” said Daniel A. Baxter, Detroit’s chief elections operations officer.
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The variable is the number of absentee ballots received before 8 p.m. on Election Day (the deadline under Michigan law). Baxter said officials will make every reasonable effort to finish counting before 4 a.m., although it could take longer if a ton of mail-in ballots arrive before the deadline. By the evening of October 26, about half of the 106,000 absentee ballots in Detroit had been returned.
Detroit, a city that spans about 140 square miles, has 38 drop boxes. It takes a few hours after the polls close for election workers to collect the ballots and bring them in a truck to Huntington Place to be tabulated.
Small towns in Michigan, like Troy, home to 66,000 voters, have a handful of drop boxes. In previous elections, Town Clerk M. Aileen Dickson said Troy finished counting ballots before midnight.
Preparing ballot papers for counting
No state releases mail-in voting results before polls close. But some allow election officials to begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day. This means they can verify that the ballot was submitted by a valid voter, including checking signatures and often removing the ballot from the inner security envelope, flattening it and stacking it.
What actions election officials can take and when vary depending on their state’s laws. A handful of states, including New Hampshire, do not allow the process to begin until after Election Day.
Preferential voting
Two states with competitive U.S. Senate elections use ranked-choice voting: Maine and Alaska. The system allows voters to rank their candidates in order of preference.
If a candidate wins more than 50% of the top picks, it ends the race. Otherwise, the candidate who received the fewest votes is eliminated and voters who ranked that candidate first have their votes reallocated to their second choice. This process repeats until a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.
Alaska accepts ballots sent from outside the United States for 15 days after Election Day and has a long history of close races that take that long to count.
The race count in California could take longer than in Alaska this year, and any race count could run into December or beyond. A contested race for the North Carolina state Supreme Court in 2024 did not reach a resolution for about six months.
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In Alaska, there are four Senate candidates on the ballot, including Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., who will appear on the ballot without party affiliation. In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Oct. 22 seeking to block certification if the incumbent president lost, alleging voter confusion. Lawyers for Mary Peltola, the Democrat, asked the court to dismiss the case.
Maine could find itself in a ranked-choice vote because Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson appear on the ballot with six registered candidates.
Municipalities report the results of the first round and the state will then know the next day or two if it will proceed with the preferential choice, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told PolitiFact. Historically, the state has known the ranked choice outcome the week after the election.
“We will work as quickly and efficiently as possible to get results as quickly as possible,” Bellows said, “but the most important thing is that they are accurate and reflect the will of the voters.”
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