Election staff course of ballots for the California state major at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 5. California’s comparatively sluggish vote depend has put “a big target on its back,” one professional informed NPR.

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Stephen Richer no longer runs elections in the fourth-largest county in the nation.

But for the relaxation of his life, he’ll keep in mind the feeling when polls closed on an election evening.

More than a million ballots staring at him and his workers. Every second that passes with out them totally counted means another conspiracy idea sprouting on-line.

“Those days, those were hell for me,” said Richer, a Republican who served as the clerk and recorder for Arizona’s Maricopa County. “You’d have a limited number of workers, and you’d have a limited amount of space, and you’d be doing everything that you possibly could. … And yet you have everyone blowing up your phone, everyone saying that you’re incompetent or corrupt or worse.”

This midterm yr, election officers in aggressive congressional districts will face that same stress.

But they will also face a onerous actuality: that these races might not be called until days after Election Day.

Here’s an FAQ on why that is, and what it could imply this yr.

Why do we know the outcomes instantly in some locations, and in others it takes days or weeks?

It comes down to the margin of victory.

Which sounds unusual, since who wins an election and by how much should not impression how lengthy it takes election officers to depend ballots.

But the actuality is what most Americans think of as “election results” — the winners announced on election nights across TV networks and social media — are not the consequence of all ballots being counted, but rather, races being called by information organizations that decide the winners primarily based on a state or district’s demographics and preliminary returns. (NPR depends on The Associated Press for its race calls.)

Those determinations come a lot sooner when races aren’t shut.

“Margins matter,” said Richer, who famous that in latest elections, there has been a lot less scrutiny on Utah than there has been on his dwelling state of Arizona, or certain contests in California, despite the states counting votes at related speeds.

“In Utah you can call all the races very quickly because the Republicans there have high margins,” Richer said.

That gives the phantasm of elections there being full, but no state is executed counting ballots on election evening, even if it seems that approach because notable races are called early.

So you’re saying the timing of outcomes is not at all tied to vote-counting velocity?

Not precisely.

The nearer the race, the more election analysts want to see before they can make a call. So the sooner states depend ballots, the sooner these determinations can be made.

This is why the longest wait occasions every election often come from locations that have aggressive races and which also depend slowly.

Like, California?

Exactly. California has become the poster baby for lengthy outcomes occasions because of both these elements: a bevy of aggressive congressional districts, which assist decide the stability of energy in the U.S. House, and a vote depend that’s been among the slowest in the nation.

Add in that President Trump, the most distinguished purveyor of election misinformation in the nation, has lengthy focused the liberal California, and specialists see a excellent storm for false voting narratives.

“It’s progressive, it likes mail ballots, it gets [postmarked] mail ballots after Election Day,” Richer said. “It just all adds up to a fairly incendiary situation.”

Charles Stewart, an elections professional at MIT, put it more merely.

“California just has a big target on its back,” said Stewart.

California’s sluggish vote counting brought about a lot of conspiracy theorizing during the state’s June major. Is this fall going to be a rerun?

Kim Alexander is cautiously optimistic that won’t be the case.

She runs the California Voter Foundation, which has been advocating for methods to velocity up California’s vote tally with out giving up the state’s beneficiant voting entry insurance policies, like mailing every energetic registered voter a poll.

“We have all these amazing rights and opportunities that we give to our voters, and the price we’re paying is a longer vote count,” Alexander informed NPR. “But that doesn’t mean that it has to be this long.”

An election employee processes ballots for the California state major at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 5.

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The single largest cause for California’s sluggish depend comes from a phenomenon Alexander calls “the pig in the python” downside: a logjam of thousands and thousands of vote-by-mail ballots getting returned on Election Day that want to be processed.

Those ballots take longer to depend than in-person votes, as officers want to deal with envelopes and confirm signatures to make certain mail ballots are solid by the individuals they’re supposed to be solid by.

Some counties see up to 50% of their vote-by-mail ballots turned in on Election Day, Alexander said, which means processing work does not even start until later in the week.

“I can’t tell you how many people who are informed and engaged and … when I tell them that the cause for the long vote count is voters holding on to their ballots to Election Day and turning them in, they look at me and they’re like, ‘That’s what I do,'” Alexander said. “And I’m like, ‘I know! You’re part of the problem!'”

The state allotted $40 million to rushing up its counting this yr, and half of that cash is going to voter schooling.

Alexander is optimistic that once voters be taught they can play a position in rushing up the course of by voting earlier, or by using other voting strategies that permit for faster counting, they will reply.

“California has been beaten up by this president for over a decade over our election process, and it’s gotten pretty worrisome,” Alexander said. “I think that California voters, if they feel they can do something to respond to that, many will take action.”

To that level, analysis carried out earlier this yr discovered that when voters in California’s San Joaquin County acquired postcards urging them to vote earlier, they were more possible to meet the really helpful deadline that allowed for election-night counting.

Alexander famous one more change that could imply less highlight on California this yr: fewer aggressive House districts.

Ahead of the 2022 elections, the state had 9 districts that the Cook Political Report thought-about aggressive. But this yr, in half because voters authorised a mid-cycle gerrymander to reply to gerrymanders in Republican-controlled states, the state has just three.

That makes it less possible the complete nation will be ready on California to know who controls the House.

OK, anywhere else we should be watching when it comes to outcomes velocity?

Using the components mentioned earlier (aggressive races + sluggish vote counting), it’s unimaginable not to look at Alaska.

According to knowledge from the MIT Election Lab, Alaska was the last state in 2024 to attain 95% of its ballots counted.

Election Day was Nov. 5 that yr, but the state’s lone House race — which Republican Nicholas Begich won by fewer than 10,000 votes — wasn’t called by the AP until Nov. 20.

This yr, polling reveals a tight Alaska Senate race. That means, if outcomes fall a certain approach in other states, the complete nation could be ready weeks to know which social gathering will management the U.S. Senate next yr.