What to Expect When You're Expecting Election Results Tonight
On October 26th, the General Registrar of York County tweeted the message he sent to candidates and parties making them aware that results on election night may come a little later than usual. The Virginia Department of Elections requested that all registrars send a similar notice. Learn what to expect tonight with VPAP’s Election Night FAQ.
There are several reasons. The first is the ballot itself. This year’s is the largest and most complicated ballot of the four-year election cycle in Virginia.
In addition to all 140 State Senate and House of Delegates seats, there are local races in nearly every precinct of every Virginia county. Voters will select candidates running for Boards of Supervisor, School Board, Commonwealth’s Attorney, Sheriff, Clerk of Court, Commissioner of the Revenue, and Treasurer. Some will cast votes for local ballot referenda (independent cities usually vote for these offices in even years). With so many offices on the ballot, tabulating each precinct’s results will take longer than other elections.
That process will include tallying early votes cast by mail and in-person. State law requires all early votes be reported in the voter’s home precinct. Assigning the early votes to the appropriate precinct on election night could delay reporting of the results. At 7 p.m., local jurisdictions will begin tabulating the early and absentee votes. The Department of Elections has a policy that requires jurisdictions to report the consolidated totals first. But in some cases, mailed ballots have to be hand-counted because they cannot be run through the tabulators.
Mail ballots postmarked no later than Election Day are accepted and added to the total as long as they are received by noon on Monday, November 13th (typically, the deadline is on Friday, but this year the deadline falls on Veterans Day Observed). As a result, contests where the candidates are separated by just a few votes may come down to these ballots. It’s possible a winner will not be declared until Monday afternoon or potentially as late as Tuesday.
Finally, voters who are not on the pollbook may cast a provisional vote at the polling place. Registrars then determine if the voter is eligible to cast a vote in that precinct, and either count or disregard the vote. In 2022, Virginia implemented Same Day Registration (SDR), which could increase the number of provisional ballots cast. In close races, these ballots could also have a role in determining the outcome of the election.
Ok, ok, but when will the results be final?
It’s important to note that the results on election night are not the final results. VPAP uses the Associated Press to mark an election as “called”. But results can and do change even after election night.
The day after the election, bipartisan Electoral Boards in each county and city will meet to begin certifying the election (aka “the canvass of votes”). They will double and triple-check the results in front of election observers. They will also determine whether to count provisional votes. The canvass is required to be completed by Tuesday, November 14th. Then, the results are considered certified at the local level. General Assembly races are not certified until the State Board of Elections meets to canvass the votes on December 4th.
Fine, I get that they’re not ‘certified’, but when can we expect all of the results to be in?
The first wave of election night results will likely come from cities, which have fewer races on their ballots. Next, you can expect results to come trickling in from the polling places in counties. Finally, you will begin to see early and mail votes being added to the totals.
While the GOP has made a concerted effort to increase their early voter turnout this year, the data shows that Democrats still maintain an edge in overall early voter turnout. So don’t be surprised if you see Republican candidates with an edge early in the night, only to have Democrats make up that edge as the night goes on.
In the past, I go to bed and one candidate is ahead, but when I wake up, another candidate is winning. What’s up with that?
Optical scanners have automated the bulk of counting, but there’s plenty of room for human error in a process involving thousands of people who have been on their feet for the better part of 15 straight hours.
And that’s why results reported on election night can change – and not for obvious reasons like extraterrestrials aiming laser beams at election machines.
Most of these human errors are small. And they often occur in elections so lopsided that it doesn’t make a difference.
There are double-checks and triple checks designed to eventually catch these errors. Many are found the next day, when election officials have had a few hours of sleep.
Election officials are transparent about any changes in election results. All changes must be entered in an “Elections Change Log” posted on the Board of Elections website. The log records the locality, precinct, reason and user name of the person who entered the change. The logs continue until the official results are certified.
Here is a sample of morning-after entries from the November 2021 election:
But sometimes a small error does make a big difference. Here are some recent examples of small (and big) mistakes that happened with reporting election results:
1991 House District 58: Tim Lindstrom v. Peter Way
On election night, the race for an open seat in House District 58 appeared to be a tie between Republican Peter Way and Democratic challenger Tim Lindstrom. A day later, Greene County found a “math error” that gave Lindstrom a one-vote lead. The race went to a recount, which later resulted in a 7-vote victory for Way. The recount discovered the following errors that made the difference:
- Two paper ballots from Albemarle County had not been counted
- Some absentee ballots in Albemarle had been miscounted
- Another mistake in Greene County; this time a voting machine had been misread.
1996 U.S. Senate: Mark Warner v. John Warner
Democrat Mark Warner was in the middle of his concession speech when squeals of delight went up around the room. The Associated Press had just reported results from Fairfax County that appeared to nearly erase what had been a 100,000-vote cushion for Republican U.S. Sen. John Warner. “It looked quite possible that Mark would defeat John,” recalls political analyst Larry Sabato, who was doing live commentary on WWBT-TV when the confusion started. It turns out that the AP had transposed the results for the two Warners. When the error was fixed, John Warner was the clear winner.
2020 U.S. House: Nick Freitas v. Abigail Spanberger
On election night, Republican challenger Nick Freitas held a 1,350-vote margin against Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger. The next day, VPAP noticed a discrepancy between the number of absentee vote totals in Henrico County compared to the number of absentee ballots that the county had received. Alerted by a VPAP tweet, Henrico officials discovered that on election night they had not processed a memory stick containing 16,616 absentee votes. (The device was mislabeled “provisional ballots,” which are processed after Election Day.) The absentee votes were overwhelmingly for Spanberger, which was consistent with the absentee votes already tallied. The correction put her in the lead for good. The incident provoked an online frenzy of false accusations of voter fraud, which two years later pop up again from time to time.
Source: Virginia Department of Elections
Nov. 6, 2023
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