REUTERS
Election Day is set to turn into Election Week, or even Election Month, for millions of voters around the country.
In 2020, the last polls closed on Tuesday, Nov. 3, but it took four days — until Saturday, Nov. 7 — for President Biden to be projected the winner due to delays in ballot tabulation, leading to unsubstantiated claims of fraud by Donald Trump and his allies that continue to reverberate.
This time around, even without the wrinkle of a global pandemic, Republicans and Democrats will still be waiting a while for several states to determine their results.
While some of these states’ slowness won’t be crucial to the outcome of the presidential race, they could delay calls in key down-ballot races — as well as the battle for control of Congress.
Here are some of the slowest slowpokes among the 50 states.
Alaska
Polls close: 12 a.m. ET Wednesday in most of the state, 1 a.m. Wednesday in parts of the Aleutian Islands.
Despite having the third-smallest population of any state in the union, the Last Frontier is notorious for being one of the last to get its ballots counted thanks to its peculiar election rules and its scattered, mostly rural population.
State law requires early votes turned in at regional elections offices on or before the Thursday prior to Election Day (Oct. 31, in this case) to be counted on election night.
However, absentee ballots and early votes cast after that time frame must be tallied up by seven days after polls close (Nov. 12), according to the Alaska Division of Elections.
That means that the House race between Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola and Republican challenger Nick Begich III, could be among the last to be called.
Arizona
Polls close: 9 p.m. ET
Arizona permits election officials to begin processing mail-in ballots after early voting begins — but crucially requires officials to wait until after polls close to count them.
During the 2022 midterms, some 20% of mail-in votes were dropped off on Election Day, requiring time-consuming verification procedures to ensure the ballots were legit.
The bulk of ballots will be cast in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix and contains about three-fifths of Arizona’s population. In 2022, it took election officials there until the Sunday after voting day to complete ballot processing.
There’s also the potential for litigation that could cause further delays in declaring a result not just in the presidential race, but in the 1st Congressional District, currently held by Republican David Schweikert and declared a “toss-up” by the Cook Political Report.
Biden won Arizona over Trump by 0.3% four years ago.
California
Polls close: 11 p.m. ET
The nation’s most populous state has a notorious history of taking days and even weeks to finish off the rudimentary task of counting ballots.
This is largely due to the fact that most Californians vote by mail. During the 2020 cycle, 72% of votes were from mail-in ballots. During the 2024 primary, that figure rose to 89%, per data from California’s Secretary of State Office.
The Golden State requires county officials to undergo an extensive signature verification process and allows precincts 30 days to count ballots — a much longer time frame than the seven days given by most other mail-in states.
Vice President Kamala Harris (a Bay Area native) is all but certain to scoop California’s 54 electoral votes in the presidential election. But no fewer than five House Republicans (John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Ken Calvert and Michelle Steel), could face a very anxious Thanksgiving waiting to see if they’ll be back in Washington in January 2025.
Nevada
Polls close: 10 p.m. ET
The Silver State was the third-to-last state to be called for Biden four years ago, and has taken steps to ensure they’re a little quicker this time around.
Nevada allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to four days after the election, provided that they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Earlier this year, Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar informed officials that they can begin tallying up in-person early votes as ballots come in on Election Day rather than waiting until after the polls close, meaning we should have a clearer picture of the state of the race as Tuesday turns into Wednesday.
However, with polls showing a tight race between Harris and Trump, who hopes to be the first Republican since George W. Bush in 2004 to take Nevada, it’s likely to be a long wait for both the Democratic and GOP camps.
North Carolina
Polls close: 7:30 p.m. ET
In 2020, North Carolina was not called for Trump until 10 days after the election (only Georgia took longer to project a winner).
While it may not take that long to pick a winner this time, the Tar Heel State has a new policy that would make ballot processing even slower than before.
Unlike four years ago, officials are no longer allowed to count early votes until after the polls close Nov. 5, due to a state law put into effect last year.
Pennsylvania
Polls close: 8 p.m. ET
The state that many think will decide the presidency does not permit any ballots to be counted prior to Election Day, which has historically led to delays in projecting a result.
Four years ago, most media outlets called the Keystone State for Biden on Nov. 7, setting off wild celebrations among his supporters.
This time around, officials will be hoping for an outcome akin to 2016, when Trump was projected to win the state in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Wisconsin
Polls close: 9:00 p.m. ET
History doesn’t necessarily suggest Wisconsin will be quite as slow as some of the others on this list. But the results may not be ready come election night.
Under Wisconsin law, ballots cannot be counted until Election Day. Complicating matters is that the Badger State appears to be one of the few where early and absentee voting has not dropped off post-COVID pandemic, even causing delays at some in-person sites last week.
Four years ago, Wisconsin was not called for Biden until the day after the polls closed.
Will Georgia struggle again?
Polls close: 7 p.m. ET
Georgia was the very last state to be called four years ago.
Since then, lawmakers in the Peach State have taken steps aimed at speeding up the reporting of results and reforming the election process.
The biggest step was passage of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which Democrats led by Biden maligned as voter suppression, with the president describing it as “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The new law was meant to streamline and bolster resources for ballot processing and verification. Absentee ballots now require the last four digits of a Social Security number or a copy of identification to minimize the complexity of signature verification.
Despite the controversy, Georgia’s elections went off without a hitch in 2022. This year, voters have already shattered early vote turnout records, with more than 2.1 million ballots already cast and another 320,000 absentee ballots requested, per data from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.
“All early votes and all early accepted ballots, they all will have to have their results reported by 8 p.m.,” Raffensperger told CBS’ “Face the Nation” earlier this month. “That’s 70, maybe even 75% of all the vote totals will be reported no later than 8 p.m. on election night.”
Also boding well for a rapid Georgia result is the fact that a Fulton County judge recently enjoined a late-stage rule by the Georgia State Election Board that mandated officials parse through ballots by hand.
What about Michigan?
Polls close: 8 p.m. ET in most of the state, 9 p.m. ET in parts of the Upper Peninsula
Another state that was called for Biden on Election Wednesday in 2020, Michigan has taken steps toward quicker reporting of results, allowing precincts with more than 5,000 voters to start counting mail-in ballots Oct. 28.
As a result, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is predicting that her state will have unofficial results no later than one day after the final votes are cast.