The White House said that the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections aren’t supposed to be known immediately after Election Day and, in several states, they won’t, news reports reveal.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated President Joe Biden’s prediction that election results won’t be finalized on time, this year, adding that “that’s how this is supposed to work”:
"So you heard the President say this the other night; he has been very clear on this as well. We may not know all the winners of elections for a few days. It takes time to count all legitimate ballots in a legal and orderly manner.
“That’s how the — that’s how this is supposed to work.”
“Pennsylvania is unlikely to have results on election night,” local news ABC 6 reported Monday, blaming a law limiting when mail-in votes can be processed:
“That means voters may again have to wait to learn who wins key races in the battleground state, where the vote count in 2020's presidential election lasted for days.”
In Philadelphia, a last-minute change to the vote-counting process on Tuesday ensures that “counting Philadelphia’s votes will take longer than expected this election,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“Originally, city elections officials had expected to have nearly all votes counted by Wednesday morning,” but now a “time consuming” new process will slow things down, The Inquirer explains:
“City officials voted Tuesday morning — as polling places opened and the vote count began for the midterm elections — to reinstate a time consuming and labor-intensive process for catching double votes that will slow how quickly they can report results.”
In Oregon, results will be delayed because of continued problems with vote counting, The Bend Bulletin reported on Tuesday:
“At 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oregonians were supposed to start getting some answers to questions that have hung over the state for two years.
“Instead, a repeat of vote counting problems in the state's third most populous county will mean at least a day's delay in tallying races for governor and the open 5th Congressional District seat that runs from Portland to Bend.”
In New Hampshire, results will be delayed because voting machines have been reprogrammed, the New Hampshire Bulletin reports:
“When a voter selects a write-in candidate, the voting machine scans the ballot, counting all of the other races. It spits the ballot into a separate bin so the write-in race can be hand-counted. But when a ballot is overvoted, all of the races have to be hand-counted. It allows for even a small number of voters to delay the counting of votes on election night.”
“Election Day could be more like Election Week in Maryland as we await all of the votes to be counted,” local station WBOC reported on Monday, noting that the delays had actually been “scheduled” into the vote counting process:
“Most counties on the Eastern Shore, like Wicomico County still won't count mail-in votes until at least Thursday.”
….
“‘Our first mail in ballot canvas will be as scheduled on Thursday November 10th,’ said Dionne Church, Director of Wicomico County's Board of Elections.
“‘We made our decision on counting our mail in ballots based on our schedule,’ she continued.”