If you have been following the midterm election, you probably know that no winner has been projected in the Arizona and Nevada U.S. Senate races.
One major reason is thousands of ballots remain uncounted. The other is that the leading candidates in those states have slim leads.
By Thursday afternoon, Arizona has counted about 70% of the projected vote, while Nevada has tabulated 83%. Several other states also haven’t counted all of their ballots.
As of this writing, California has tabulated just 46% of its vote. Oregon has counted 72%, Washington has tallied 66%, and Utah is at 60%. Those states, however, had less competitive races where the result is not in doubt.
The major culprit for the ballots needing more time to count is the influx of mail-in ballots. While votes on Election Day are generally done on machines that can be quickly tabulated, mail-in votes generally take more work. These ballots involve an election official scanning a ballot and manually checking the signature.
Election officials say those things take time.
Officials in Arizona and Nevada say it might be until early next week before the overwhelming majority of ballots are counted. Arizona alone has 560,000 ballots left to count, while Nevada has 135,000.
To understand how each state counts its early ballots, click here.