Slow ballot counts in California and Alaska could delay midterm results by days or weeks
In several competitive midterm races, final results may not be known until days or weeks after Election Day. The delay stems from a combination of close margins — which require news organizations to see more data before calling races — and states that count ballots slowly. California and Alaska have been identified as the two states most likely to produce extended waits this cycle.
Single source · Not corroborated
What most Americans experience as "election results" on election night are not fully counted tallies but rather race calls made by news organizations based on demographics and early returns, according to NPR's reporting. Those calls come faster when a race is not close, which creates the appearance that some states count faster than others even when the underlying counting speed is similar.
Stephen Richer, a Republican who served as clerk and recorder for Arizona's Maricopa County, told NPR that Utah races are typically called quickly because Republican margins there are high — not because Utah finishes counting before other states. "Margins matter," Richer said, noting that Arizona and certain California contests face far more scrutiny despite counting at comparable speeds.
California has drawn particular attention because it combines a large number of competitive congressional districts with one of the slowest vote counts in the nation. Kim Alexander, who runs the California Voter Foundation, described the central cause as a "pig in the python" problem: a logjam of vote-by-mail ballots that voters hold until Election Day. She told NPR that some counties see up to 50% of their mail ballots turned in on Election Day, meaning processing cannot begin until later in the week. The state allocated $40 million this year to speed up counting, part of which goes toward voter education encouraging earlier ballot return.