The last midterm elections in the United States took place in 2022 with 112 million voters casting ballots. The U.S. election system puts the voting process under the authority of state and local officials, with voters going to local polling places managed by 8,000 local governments, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
How are the votes counted?
According to EAC data, most voting precincts count votes by using electronic scanners to read paper ballots.
About one-fifth of precincts in the United States used hand-counting to tabulate votes during the 2024 election.
Voting in many states takes place in three ways, including in-person early voting, election day voting, and mail-in ballots. Each state has rules about whether votes cast early or by mail can be counted before polls close on election day.
Once the counting begins on election night, precincts begin to release their totals for each race on the ballot in unofficial results that are also reported to state election authorities.
Certification timelines
The vote-counting is followed by a process called canvassing during which officials review the ballots cast, ensure proper procedures for handling the ballots were followed, and that the total number of counted ballots matches the total number of voters.
After these checks at the local level, a state canvass board, the secretary of state of each state, or other official gives their approval, making the results official.
This process also varies state-by-state and can take between days and weeks to complete. In Delaware, for example, the certification process is set to be completed by November 5 this year, two days after election day. For most states, this deadline falls between November 20-30, and in New York it is December 15.
Terms for new members of Congress elected in November begin January 3.
Why do unofficial results take days to report in some states?
The process of counting the votes and when election officials can begin plays a major role in how quickly results can be announced. A precinct that has to tally all votes by hand and cannot begin to count any ballots until polls close on election night will take longer than a precinct that can have its mail-in count prepared as ballots arrive and uses machines to count in-person votes.
Another source of delay is counting mail-in ballots that arrive after election day. In most states, this is not allowed, with mail-in ballots required to be received sometime on election day. In the case of Delaware, they must be received one day prior. But in 13 of the 50 states, ballots can be received later as long as they are accepted at a post office by election day. In Pennsylvania, those ballots can arrive at election offices as late as 14 days after the election, and in two states – Rhode Island and Tennessee – there is no receipt deadline as long as the post office had the ballot by election day.
And then there is the prospect of recounts. In extremely close races, state election laws allow for either automatic recounts of ballots or for candidates to request a recount. That process can take several days, especially in areas where a candidate has to file legal documents to initiate the process.
Election security
Local jurisdictions take a number of steps to ensure the security of the vote, including not connecting voting machines to the internet and using tamper-evident seals on voting equipment and ballot boxes to control access.
The federal government plays a big role as well, with the U.S. War Department using its intelligence and cyber capabilities to combat foreign actors who may try to meddle in the process. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security coordinates its efforts with the War Department and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
CISA works with state and local election authorities to train them on best security practices and technical support such as testing of computer systems and scanning for vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
A final check in the system is a post-election audit, which many jurisdictions carry out to ensure voting machines worked properly, and that vote counts are accurate.