How Soon Will We Know Who Won the Senate?

If things look close, don’t stay up Tuesday night: A Dispatch Explainer.

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An election worker processes vote-by-mail ballots in Santa Ana, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Hey, Mom, we made it! The grueling 2022 election season, which featured wildly unprecedented levels of midterm-year spending, will reach its conclusion Tuesday. But as in 2020, it might take a few days to answer the election’s preeminent outstanding question: Which party will take control of the deadlocked U.S. Senate?

Even if all goes to plan, it may be weeks before we know the winner in Georgia’s Senate contest. That’s because Georgia is alone among this year’s battleground states in employing a runoff system for statewide races: If no candidate breaks 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote getters go to a head-to-head contest in January. 

That’s far from an implausible outcome in this year’s contest between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker. The two are neck and neck in the polls—FiveThirtyEight’s polling average favors Warnock by .4 points, while RealClearPolitics gives a 1.5-point edge to Walker. If Libertarian spoiler Chase Oliver grabs a couple points too, as polls have suggested he could, that’s easy runoff material. (In Georgia’s regularly scheduled 2020 Senate contest, Libertarian Shane Hazel got more than 2 percent of the vote, which was enough to force a runoff between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff; Ossoff ultimately triumphed in the January 2021 rematch.)

Even the question of whether a runoff will be necessary may take a few days to determine. “A close election will drag it out,” Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Gabe Sterling told The Dispatch. “In Georgia we finished counting before most other states last time, but we had a close race.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Rlritt

    <<<>>>

    The worst thing about politics. They used to control spending. But the TV and media in general saw how much money could be made, and got rid of the spending limits. Just as bad as eliminating the Fairness Doctrine. Much more money can be made by manipulating the masses by creating constant controversy.

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  2. Trichwages

    I’m prepared to go to sleep and check in tomorrow. Counting votes takes as long as it takes, and I decided to break my expectation of getting results on the same night since 2020. It’s unreasonable.

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    1. Dlnevins

      How did the Republic survive back in the 19th Century prior to the invention of the telegraph, when it could take weeks to tally all the votes? The horror!

      We really need as a people to re-learn the virtue of patience. I want accurate results, not quick ones.

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    Derekdouglas

    Amazing that a country like Brazil, with districts in the Amazon, are able to quickly tabulate their very close election in a day.

    Why is this so hard in our country?

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    1. Trichwages

      Because they don’t have 50 versions of election law?

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  4. LucyTrice

    Thanks for the caption!

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    Xsearnold

    Hopefully, states like Pennsylvania will change their process to start counting votes earlier. Otherwise, election night coverage will become a thing of the past! Oh, wait, never mind.

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    1. Natty Bumpo

      Do not hold your breath on PA.

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  6. Jfan

    I served as a poll worker once. I saw many violations of the rules, but they were all due to people being sloppy or stupid, not fraud,

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  7. LucyTrice

    Thanks for a thorough yet pithy description of the ballot counting challenges that will affect when certain races are called. Well done!

    However: The photo at the top desperately needs a caption! The explanation for such ballot basket labels is clearly covered in the text below but in our polarized political climate it is far easier to attach a more sinister meaning. Those baskets represent administrative protocols, the very tools for fighting fraud, yet without a caption they appear to document bias within a board of elections itself. I have worked elections for 20 years, including as a chief judge and do not believe the type of bias feared by many actually exists in this day and age.

    Not helpful, particularly as the image that shows at the top of today's website. Please please please please add captions! If not, at least explain why they are not automatically included! Thank you.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Marion Coatsworth-Hay

    I'm not voting this year. I've been so distressed at how people hang onto the belief that "a sacred landslide election victory [was] so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long", that I vowed not to vote again. I know that Hillary Clinton and Stacy Abrams both held onto their own "it was rigged" beliefs and statements -- it is inexcusable for both of them.

    My goodness, I live in a nice county. Yeah, it's poor, rural, probably depressed, etc., but it's small enough and I've lived here long enough that I invariably know some of the nice people who run our elections, work the polls, do the work. Not for a moment do I think that anyone here would ever subvert an election. I'm certain my vote would count here. I'm certain the elections aren't "rigged" here. If I did go to my usual polling place to vote, I would be shocked if there were any observers, or intimidators, or honestly, even any official party poll watchers. Just the usual older ladies behind the card tables at the firehouse, smiling and checking us in.

    My decision not to vote is strictly emotional. It's not rational. I suppose it's my inchoate and mostly pointless middle finger raised at all who've perpetuated the lies. I'm bracing myself for what happens next week when so many who've lost can fall into the rut election deniers have worn for them. And I'm bracing myself for the allegations of fraud in those places where it's just impossible to tally all the votes before midnight on Election Day.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Rlritt

      Hillary conceded the election the next day and accepted the results. It must have been frustrating to win the popular vote and lose the Electoral College. but she excepted it.

      Trump, on the other hand, lost both.

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  9. J. Everett Schubert

    If there's any silver lining to the, how do I put this...pluster cluck...Election of 2020, maybe it's that election workers and officials will be extra diligent this time about seeing that the process is smooth, streamlined, and free of error, so as to ward off criticism.

    However, I also understand that you will never pacify the Breitbart crowd. If the results take any longer than 2-3 hours to come in on November 8th, they'll take that as surefire evidence that the game is rigged. Never mind that the reason why Pennsylvania will take some time to count has been spelled out here in detail. It's really not hard to figure out -- there are a ton of envelopes, which take time to process, and they cannot be processed until Election Day.

    I can't even begin to tell you how many ostensibly educated, otherwise smart people I know who, after Election 2020 -- and to this day -- repeat falsehoods about "Late night ballot dumps in Philadelphia" or "Union thugs being bussed in to stuff the ballot boxes in Wisconsin". Or "Thousands of ballots being magically found in a car trunk in Atlanta." It's nonsense. But it's one of those lies that has been repeated so many times in right wing circles that it is accepted as gospel.

    I swear, some people just have this persecution complex where they MUST, they NEED, to feel like the whole world is rigged against them.

    They'll never consider Occam's Razor: That maybe, just maybe, there's no sinister cabal lurking in the shadows trying to defraud you. No, it just comes down to the fact that your GOP candidate in some cases, has a favorability rating lower than colon cancer.

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    1. Dlnevins

      All the more reason to forbid the release of ANY preliminary election results. Better to just wait until all the votes are tallied and then release the final results.

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      Rlritt

      In all fairness, Fox News is complicit in the lie.

      You watch tomorrow, if the Republicans don't win every race they will scream fraud. I believe they would be eager to start riots in every state the don't win.

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    3. LucyTrice

      One local news station had a decent explanation of security measures incorporated into ballots that prevents ballot box stuffing:

      https://www.wral.com/bar-codes-special-paper-fences-and-cameras-keep-counterfeit-ballots-out-of-nc-count/20536175/

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  10. Russell J

    It is sort of interesting how voting is handled differently in each state. You can see how the swing state spotlight can lead to improvement. Florida is maybe the best at vote counting now and Georgia is working to remove any small inefficiency but the most one sided state, California, might be slowest. I would be curious if PA, AZ, or NC are trying to improve.

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    1. LucyTrice

      I have worked elections in NC for 20 years, including being a chief judge. In all my time the county - a not-too-long-ago rural county more red than blue but more conservative than not - has had an attitude of continuous improvement. Guidance has come from the state level but our county leadership has been exemplary. The precincts I have worked in create a welcoming *civic* and civil environment for all voters.

      The state requires paper ballots, including from ADA compliant voting machines. The tabulators have no connection to anything other than a power source.

      WRAL had a pretty good summary recently: https://www.wral.com/bar-codes-special-paper-fences-and-cameras-keep-counterfeit-ballots-out-of-nc-count/20536175/

      There's a lot that goes on that does not get covered. It occurred to me that, in spite of the past two years election security angst, no one has done any comprehensive reporting on current industry standards for election security. Surely there are nonpartisan researchers out there who compile information for states to consider when modifying their systems.

      Our county has had a 'customer service' oriented approach as long as I have been involved. However, there is only so much board of elections workers can do. It is up to voters to know registration deadlines, to realize that moving from one county to another requires updating their voter registration (and that unwillingness to pay for a duplicate license is not exempt one from the requirement to have a license with one's current address), to take the initiative to confirm the location of their precinct (we are in a high growth area and voting locations change based on population and changes in availability of appropriate venues). It is up to voters to realize that caring passionately about the future of one's country is an endeavor that requires more than a few days' effort every two years.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Rlritt

        I worked elections in IL and there were very specific rules that needed to be followed and the polling places required people from both parties. Its a shame for 1,000's of poll workets who diligently followed the rules are now held to be sneaky, partisan hacks. That Trump and the Republicans have made every vote suspect is a travesty.

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      2. J. Everett Schubert

        Very well said. And thank you for your service in this area! Election workers have a thankless, usually unnoticed job -- unless something happens, then you are really under the microscope. We appreciate what y'all do.

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      3. Russell J

        Fair points. I think all the states have accurate vote counts and the election workers I have dealt with are top notch and trustworthy. Some states are just faster at counting and it really wouldn’t bother me much except folks are using the anomalies and differences between states to cast doubt on accuracy. I’m most familiar with AL and GA voting. In AL we have no early voting, and use paper ballots. I have faith in the system but I imagine if the state was a toss-up (just imagine), it would probably shine a light on a few districts which are either understaffed or make an honest mistake which is later corrected.

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        1. J. Everett Schubert

          Hi fellow Alabamian! I know it'll be a nail biter to the end, but any predictions on the outcome of our election next week? ;-)

          I'm not sure how old you are, but it has been amusing/interesting to watch the political evolution of our state since even the late 90s. I still remember 2002, when Riley only beat Siegelman by a whisker. In 2006, the margin was more decisive, but Riley was still campaigning like crazy down to the final day. Democrats still won a few statewide races as recently as 2006, and elections were still generally competitive, if memory serves me correctly. But in 2010, everything changed. It's unreal just how uncompetitive the Alabama Democrats are today (2017 notwithstanding, but that was a VERY weird set of circumstances).

          Personally, while I am a moderate conservative, I like there to be some semblance of balance. My ballot will be all over the place: A handful of Republicans, a couple of Democrats, a couple Libertarians, and probably a couple of write-ins where both candidates were just unacceptable.

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