What's Causing Midterm Vote Count Delays? What We Know So Far

Polling has ended for the November midterms, but the drama has continued to unfold with runoffs, dead heats, and accusations of election fraud or interference among the tumultuous turns in a contest that will only fully conclude in December.

While Republicans still appear to hold a marginal lead in the run for the House, the Senate remains on a knife edge, with Nevada and Georgia set to determine which party will have control of the upper chamber.

Though final tally delays were anticipated, the broiling tensions preceding these elections made furtive ground for largely baseless election fraud claims to spread as they did in 2020.

So what's the hold-up in the remaining states where ballots are being counted? Newsweek explores the state of play.

Arizona

An historic swing state with polarizing figures on the ballot papers, it was likely from the outset that Arizona would become a magnet for speculation, anger and misinformation over its voting process.

The delays in Arizona, in conjunction with technical errors across polling stations, have made fertile ground for questionable claims and accusations.

Former President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social platform on Friday that "very strange" things were happening in Arizona and Nevada, without any additional context or clarification.

Just hours after polls opened, reports of technical errors began to trickle through across Arizona's Maricopa County, with around one in four polling places in Maricopa County thought to have been affected.

That swiftly led the Republican National Committee's (RNC) national and senatorial committee, alongside U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters' and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's campaign teams, to file a lawsuit to keep polling open longer than 7 p.m.

However, Judge Tim Ryan rejected their request and said he'd seen no evidence that voters had been prevented from casting votes.

Maricopa County then tweeted that it had identified tabulation issues at 60 of its 223 voter centers, representing about 27 percent. These were later identified to have been caused by printer settings, with some of the printers not producing dark enough timing marks.

County Elections Department has denied claims that voters were "burdened" with excessive wait times too, made by, among others, Charlie Kirk, president of conservative youth activist group Turning Point USA.

While it's not clear what Kirk based his claims on, the fact is that both the elections chief, Stephen Richer, and the Board of Supervisors chairman, Bill Gates, are Republicans, and the county election tracker showed waits under five minutes for most locations, and no waits at all in some.

Maricopa County responded to Kirk's tweet directly and refuted the claims, and said: "No part of the tweet below is accurate."

Procedural differences also play a part in how quickly votes are processed. In Maricopa, ballots are counted at a central facility rather than at polling places. In addition, a significant number of voters were also said to have brought their mail-in ballots on the last day of voting.

Gates dismissed comparisons with other states, such as Florida, which by Thursday had tallied most of its ballots, pointing out how Florida did not allow voters to drop off their vote on Election Day, as Arizona does.

Others criticized Maricopa County officials for the delays by claiming, without evidence, that the extra time taken was a deliberate "tactic" to undermine Lake.

Republican Mark Finchem, who is trailing in the Arizona secretary of state election count at the time of publication, posted on Twitter: "We are going to win and they are dragging it out to take away our mandate and the narrative that #JustFollowTheLaw is IN. It's ok, we will wait for the incompetent administrators to finish their delay tactics. In the end we still get the peoples' work done. #AZSOS."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs addressed such claims on Twitter.

"Despite what my election-denying opponent is trying to spin, the pattern and cadence of incoming votes are exactly what we expected," Hobbs wrote. "In fact, they mirror what our state has seen in recent elections We must remain patient and let our election officials do their jobs."

Hobbs, who is Arizona's current secretary of state, is the Chief Election Officer for the state and is responsible for ensuring the Elections Procedures Manual, detailing "the procedures elections officials must follow to ensure election practices are consistent and efficient throughout the state," according to Citizens Clean Elections Commission.

Hobbs also certifies election equipment, conducts "logic & accuracy tests" on election equipment" and "maintains the statewide voter registration database."

However, her role during this contest has been questioned by former Republican and Democrat secretaries of state.

Democrat Richard Mahoney told Time before the midterms that it would be "wise" that Hobbs seconded "responsibility for ministerial oversight to either the attorney general or the Maricopa County recorder."

In addition, Republican Ken Bennet told the magazine that she should "recuse herself from the official acts." In July, Lake's campaign argued for recusal too.

A spokesman for Hobbs said she would "execute her duties as Arizona's chief election official faithfully, in accordance with the law, and guided by the highest ethical standards—just as the voters have trusted her to."

As of publication, the full election results from Arizona may not be delivered until next week.

Nevada

The Senate race in The Silver State between Republican Adam Laxalt and Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is somewhat less thorny. Unlike some other states, Nevada accepts mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive by November 12, with results not expected to arrive until at least November 15.

In 2020, Nevada became the subject of mockery and memes because of delays in its count as the nation waited to see whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden would win the presidential race. It took until November 7, four days after polls opened, for Nevada to announce that Biden had won.

As of Saturday morning, there were still around more than 50,000 ballots left to count, with analysts increasingly suggesting it may run in the Democrats' favor.

Jon Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent, tweeted on Thursday that if Cortez Masto continued "to win urban mail at current clip, taking 65%, she will easily overtake Laxalt". As of Saturday morning, Cortez Masto was trailing Laxalt by less than 1,000 votes.

Whether a result of the state's voting and balloting options, or perhaps that neither Laxalt nor Cortez Masto were courting dubious theories about the contest, the slow count in Nevada has not attracted the same intensity of speculation and scrutiny as in Arizona.

House Results

Though the GOP still appears to be just about on track to take the House, there still remains a number of contests yet to call that could swing it to the Democrats.

As of Friday night, California had the highest number of remaining House results to announce, with 17 in total. Most of the population uses postal ballots, however, with results not expected until at least November 15.

Arizona trailed in second with four representatives yet to be called; Nevada and Oregon had three races still to count, Colorado and Washington with two, while Alaska, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, and Montana were one vote away.

According to Rock the Vote, the majority of these states permitted all methods of voting or have provided additional privileges over mail-in voting; for example Oregon recently introduced new rules meaning voters have longer to mail their ballots (it also did not offer early in-person voting).

Suspicion and Accusation

Trump has attempted to capitalize on suspicions and uncertainty, even within his own party, claiming that he "sent in the FBI" to prevent Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis from losing the gubernatorial race back in 2018.

Even before the first ballot was cast, there were also numerous pre-election lawsuits filed that focused on voting practices. In Maricopa County, two poll worker litigation cases were filed ahead of polling day, while in Clark County, Nevada, the GOP was able to secure information and party affiliation of workers.

Not all the suits were filed by the GOP. As reported by CNN, The Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans, Inc. and a Democratic voter had filed a lawsuit in Cochise County, Arizona, challenging its plans to hand count ballots.

With the Georgia runoff between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker likely to incubate such suspicions, the outcome of the race could alter voting practices across states in the years to come.

The Center for Public Integrity found that nearly half of the voters in the country lived in states that were restricting voting access.

Campaigns against ballot drop boxes, it also wrote, had led to a slew of other restrictions against this option and "that with hundreds of GOP candidates on the November ballot who question the 2020 election results, bans could become law in 2023 and beyond."

Newsweek has contacted Kari Lake, Katie Hobbs, Blake Masters, Mark Kelly, Adam Laxalt, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Mark Finchem for comment.