The real reason it's going to take a while to know who won in some midterm races
Stephen Richer no longer runs elections in the fourth-largest county in the country.
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Richer → go → country
But for the rest of his life, he'll remember the feeling when polls closed on an election night.
More than a million ballots staring at him and his staff.
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polls → remember → him
Every moment that passes without them fully counted means another conspiracy theory sprouting online.
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them → pass → theory
"Those days, those were hell for me," said Richer, a Republican who served as the clerk and recorder for Arizona's Maricopa County.
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who → say → 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.
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you → have → everything
And yet you have everyone blowing up your phone, everyone saying that you're incompetent or corrupt or worse."
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you → have → phone
This midterm year, election officials in competitive congressional districts will face that same pressure.
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officials → face → pressure
But they will also face a hard reality: that those races might not be called until days after Election Day.
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races → face → Day
Here's an FAQ on why that is, and what it could mean this year.
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it → mean → what
Why do we know the results immediately in some places, and in others it takes days or weeks?
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it → know → days
It comes down to the margin of victory.
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It → come → victory
Which sounds strange, since who wins an election and by how much shouldn't impact how long it takes election officials to count ballots.
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it → sound → ballots
But the reality is what most Americans think of as "election results" — the winners announced on election nights across TV networks and social media — are not the result of all ballots being counted, but rather, races being called by news organizations that determine the winners based on a state or district's demographics and initial returns.
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that → think → demographics
(NPR relies on The Associated Press for its race calls.)
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NPR → rely → calls
Those determinations come a lot faster when races aren't close.
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races → come → ?
"Margins matter," said Richer, who noted that in recent elections, there has been a lot less scrutiny on Utah than there has been on his home state of Arizona, or certain contests in California, despite the states counting votes at similar speeds.
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who → matter → speeds
"In Utah you can call all the races very quickly because the Republicans there have high margins," Richer said.
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Richer → call → margins
That gives the illusion of elections there being complete, but no state is done counting ballots on election night, even if it seems that way because notable races are called early.
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races → give → night
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So you're saying the timing of results isn't at all tied to vote-counting speed?
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timing → load → speed
The closer the race, the more election analysts need to see before they can make a call.
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they → need → call
So the faster states count ballots, the faster those determinations can be made.
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determinations → count → ballots
This is why the longest wait times every election usually come from places that have competitive races and which also count slowly.
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which → come → races
California has become the poster child for long results times because of both those factors: a bevy of competitive congressional districts, which help determine the balance of power in the U.S. House, and a vote count that's been among the slowest in the nation.
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that → become → nation
Add in that President Trump, the most prominent purveyor of election misinformation in the country, has long targeted the liberal California, and experts see a perfect storm for false voting narratives.
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experts → add → narratives
"It's progressive, it likes mail ballots, it gets [postmarked] mail ballots after Election Day," Richer said.
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Richer → like → Day
"It just all adds up to a fairly incendiary situation."
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It → add → situation
Charles Stewart, an elections expert at MIT, put it more simply.
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Stewart → put → it
"California just has a big target on its back," said Stewart.
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Stewart → have → back
California's slow vote counting caused a lot of conspiracy theorizing during the state's June primary.
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counting → cause → primary
Is this fall going to be a rerun?
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fall → go → ?
She runs the California Voter Foundation, which has been advocating for ways to speed up California's vote tally without giving up the state's generous voting access policies, like mailing every active registered voter a ballot.
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which → run → ballot
"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 told NPR.
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Alexander → have → NPR
"But that doesn't mean that it has to be this long."
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it → mean → ?
The single biggest cause for California's slow count comes from a phenomenon Alexander calls "the pig in the python" problem: a logjam of millions of vote-by-mail ballots getting returned on Election Day that need to be processed.
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that → come → Day
Those ballots take longer to count than in-person votes, as officials need to deal with envelopes and verify signatures to make sure mail ballots are cast by the people they're supposed to be cast by.
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they → take → people
Some counties see up to 50% of their vote-by-mail ballots turned in on Election Day, Alexander said, which means processing work doesn't even begin until later in the week.
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work → see → 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.
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Alexander → tell → what
"And I'm like, 'I know! You're part of the problem!'"
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You → know → problem
The state allocated $40 million to speeding up its counting this year, and part of that money is going to voter education.
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part → allocate → education
Alexander is optimistic that once voters learn they can play a role in speeding up the process by voting earlier, or by utilizing other voting methods that allow for quicker counting, they will respond.
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they → learn → counting
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
