Election Day has finally arrived, but don’t expect to enjoy a sense of relief and finality anytime soon because it will likely take some time to get the final results from local, state, and national elections.

On election night in California, county election officials must begin report results to Secretary of State within two hours after the polls close and the votes begin to be counted.

According to the Secretary of State, the first election results are usually mail-in ballots and early voting ballots. In California, county election officials can begin opening and processing mail-in ballot envelopes up to 29 days before Election Day, but those results cannot be counted or shared with the public until all ballot boxes are close on election day.

Across the country, state polling places close at different times of the night (local time).

What time do voting centers close in the US?

Indiana and Kentucky are the first to close the doors of their voting centers at 6 pm local time.

States that close their voting centers at 7 pm local time include Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee , Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming.

In Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia, polls close at 7:30 p.m.

In Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin Voting centers close at 8 p.m.

New York polling stations close at 9:00 p.m.

North Dakota closes its centers between 7 and 9 p.m.; time depends on location.

Once the polls close, election officials have the difficult task of processing and verifying ballots before counting begins.

Slow vote counting in California

California has the designation of being the slowest state in counting and tallying the votes of its more than 22 million registered voters, which election officials attribute to the extra time it takes to ensure ballots are valid.

“California has taken extraordinary steps in recent years to ensure we go the extra mile to count every eligible vote. A slow count is not a problem, it is a virtue,” Russia Chavis Cárdenas, voting rights and redistricting program manager at California Common Cause. “It means election officials are doing everything they can to count every legitimate vote fairly and accurately.”

Up to 29 days before Election Day, county election officials can begin processing and verifying all vote-by-mail ballots to ensure that ballot envelopes are signed and that the signatures match the signatures on file.

If a voter’s signature is missing or mismatch After signing the record, California law requires election officials to notify the voter and give him or her an opportunity to fix the problem.

No matter how long it takes election workers to process and verify ballots in preparation for the recount, election results are not final until the Secretary of State compiles official results at the state level during the official counting period in the states. 30 days after the elections.

“While we may not know the election winners when we go to bed, the most important thing is to ensure that every eligible voter’s ballot is counted accurately,” Cárdenas added.

Los Angeles County results updates coming in waves

The first official election results will be reported on election night by the Los Angeles County Recorder-Recorder/County Clerk between 8:30 and 8:45 p.m.

Second updated results will be reported between 8:45 and 9 p.m.

The third result will be announced between 9 and 11 p.m.

All three results include vote-by-mail ballots and voter center ballots cast before Election Day.

There is no exact date or time to share the final update with the public because it is unknown how long it will take for the county elections office to count completed ballots at voting centers on Election Day. The processing, verification and counting of those particular ballots begins at 10 pm on election night and continues until all ballots are counted.

You can stay up to date with the Los Angeles County election results from the county’s website. Registrar-Registrar/County Clerk Website.

When will the presidential race be decided?

The race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Trump is considered very close, with the outcome in the hands of voters in seven swing states: Pennsylvania (19 electoral college votes), North Carolina and Georgia (16 each). ). ), Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada (6).

Two of those states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have laws prohibiting election officials from counting mail-in ballots before Election Day, which is one reason it took up to four days to project a winner there in 2020. Michigan and Nevada had similar restrictions in 2020, but this year officials were allowed to begin counting mail-in votes well in advance.

There are so many electoral votes at stake in Pennsylvania that it seems likely that the presidential race will not be decided until the results in that state are clear.

Beyond that, two issues could delay results in any state with razor-thin margins on Election Day: provisional ballots (i.e., ballots cast by people in the wrong precinct or with other technical problems) and mailed ballots by mail on time by the voter. But it arrived after Tuesday.

As journalist Judd Legum noted in his Popular Information newsletter, the lead in each state could go back and forth between Trump and Harris, as early and mail-in votes are counted and late-arriving votes are added to the mix. However, past patterns in early and mail-in voting may not be a good predictor of this year’s outcome: Trump’s campaign publicly disparaged mail-in voting in 2020, so Democrats dominated those counts, but both parties accepted it in 2024.

Congressional control

In the House, Republicans have 220 seats and Democrats 212, with three seats vacant.

Analysts say swing seats in California, Virginia, New York, Ohio and Iowa will likely determine which party ends up controlling the chamber, but the picture likely won’t become clear until Wednesday at the earliest. To get an early idea of ​​how things are going, look at the results from Virginia’s 2nd and 7th districts and New York’s 1st, 4th, 17th and 22nd districts.

In the Senate, neither the Republicans (with 49 seats) nor the Democrats (with 47 seats) have a majority, but the Democrats control the chamber with the help of the four independents who are part of them.

Analysts have long predicted that Democrats would lose control of the Senate, mainly because they have to defend many seats this year in swing or right-leaning states. Most observers expect Republicans to pick up seats in West Virginia and Montana, so control of the Senate will depend on the fate of Democratic incumbents in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, along with seats in Arizona and Michigan that They currently occupy an independent and a democratic party, respectively. A wild card is Texas, where Republican incumbent Ted Cruz is in a tight battle with Democrat Colin Allred.

Of those races, the least likely to have projected winners on Tuesday are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, given state laws that prevent them from counting mail-in votes before Election Day.

According to the Secretary of State, the media may announce a winner or candidates may concede to their opponent on election night or in the following days based on semi-official results and not the final election results.