Election day is finally here, but don’t expect to feel a sense of relief and certainty anytime soon, as it will likely take some time to get the final results of local, state and national elections.

County election officials must start on election night in California Reporting the results to the Minister of Foreign Affairs They will start counting votes two hours after the polls close.

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

State polling stations across the country close at different times of the evening (local time).

When do polling places close across the US?

Indiana and Kentucky were the first states to close the doors of their voting centers at 18:00 local time.

States that closed voting centers at 19:00 local time include Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont. . Virginia and Wyoming.

Polls close at 19.30 in Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia.

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 20:00

Voting centers in New York close at 21:00

North Dakota closes its centers from 7 to 9 p.m.; time depends on location.

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

Votes are being counted slowly in California

California has the title of being the slowest state when it comes to counting and tallying multiple ballots. 22 million registered voters, Election officials attribute this to the extra time needed to ensure ballots are valid.

“California has taken extraordinary steps in recent years to ensure that we make extra efforts to count every eligible vote. Slow counting is okay, it’s a virtue,” Russia Chavis Cardenas, voting rights and redistricting program manager for California Common Cause. “This means election officials are doing their best to count every legitimate vote fairly and accurately.”

Up to 29 days before election day, county election officials can begin processing and verifying all mail-in ballots to ensure the ballots are signed and the signatures match those on file.

If the voter has a signature missing or mismatch California law requires election officials to notify those voters and give them the opportunity to resolve the issue, according to the signature on file.

Regardless of how long it takes election workers to process and verify ballots in preparation for the count, election results are not final until the Secretary of State compiles official statewide results during the official poll period within 30 days after the election.

“Even if we don’t know the winners of the election when we go to bed, the most important thing is to make sure the votes of all eligible voters are counted accurately,” Cardenas added.

Los Angeles County results updates come in waves

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

Second updated results will be announced between 20:45 and 21:00

The third result will be announced between 21.00-23.00.

All three results include mail-in ballots and voter center votes before election day.

There is no exact date and time for the latest update to be shared with the public because it is unclear how long it will take for county election offices to count the ballots filled out at vote centers on election day. Processing, verification and counting of specific ballots begins at 10pm on election night and continues until all ballots are counted.

You can follow the Los Angeles County election results from the district’s accounts. Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s website.

When will the presidential race be decided?

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

Two of these states (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) have laws prohibiting election officials from counting mail-in ballots before election day; That’s one reason why it took up to four days to predict a winner there in 2020. Michigan and Nevada had similar restrictions. But this year, officials were allowed to start counting mail-in votes well in advance.

So many electoral votes are 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, in any state where margins are narrow on Election Day, two issues could delay results: provisional ballots (that is, ballots cast by people in the wrong precinct or due to other technical issues) and ballots sent in by voters who arrived only after Tuesday.

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

Congress Control

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

Analysts say swing seats in California, Virginia, New York, Ohio and Iowa will likely determine which party controls the House, but the picture isn’t expected to become clear until Wednesday at the earliest. For an early hint of how things are going, watch the results for Virginia’s 2nd and 7th districts and New York’s 1st, 4th, 17th and 22nd districts.

Neither Republicans (with 49 seats) nor Democrats (with 47 seats) have a majority in the Senate, but Democrats control the chamber with the help of four independents who caucus with them.

Analysts have long predicted that Democrats would lose control of the Senate, mainly because they have to defend so many seats in swing or right-leaning states this year. Most observers expect Republicans to pick up seats in West Virginia and Montana; therefore, control of the Senate will be limited to incumbent Democrats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada, and seats in Arizona and Michigan currently held by an unaffiliated independent party. respectively, a Democrat. One of the wild cards is Texas, where Republican incumbent Ted Cruz is in a tight fight with Democrat Colin Allred.

Of those races, the least likely to see winners on Tuesday will be Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, given state laws that prevent mail-in votes from being counted before Election Day.

According to the Secretary of State, media outlets may announce the winner on election night or in the following days, or candidates may concede to their opponents based on semi-official results rather than final election results.