Voting in the 2022 midterm elections ends tonight, but many races might not be called for days. That’s because it takes time to count mail-in ballots nationwide. It could lead to another replay of the 2020 election, where the Republican lead vanished in many states.
“In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, two states with critical races statewide … they don't allow their election officials to process ballots until Election Day,” says Nick Corasaniti, a politics correspondent for the New York Times. “So they haven't gotten to open them, pre-process them, do any of the inspection. So that leads to a long backlog. … So the results that we see in those two states early on … will lean heavily Republican because those Democratic ballots that are in the mail have yet to be counted. … So it'll give a misperception of Republicans’ really aggressive strike. Now that's not to say that Democrats will definitely catch up.”
