Most of the attention on Tuesday will be focused on Wisconsin, a battleground state where Republican voters are deciding who will challenge Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, in a primary that has become another proxy battle between the former President Donald J. Trump and his former Vice President, Mike Pence.
Polls close in Wisconsin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. While it’s hard to predict when we might get returns on election night, some factors can give us clues: what proportion of the vote is expected in the mail, what rules does the state have about when where ballots can be counted and, of course, how close a race is.
The Republican primary for governor has been a tight one, with Tim Michels and Rebecca Kleefisch leading in a race where a central campaign issue has been the misconception that Mr. Trump’s 2020 defeat can be decertified.
Mr Trump has endorsed Mr Michels, a construction tycoon who has said he would consider decertifying the 2020 results – which cannot legally be done. Ms Kleefisch, who is endorsed by Mr Pence, has often found herself explaining this to voters. Behind them is Tim Ramthun, the main proponent of state decertification.
Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties are home to the largest concentration of Republican voters in the state, so a call for a race in the gubernatorial primary may depend on how voting goes in those areas: a High turnout or unforeseen issues could make it difficult to get a clear picture of the race result in the early evening.
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With Republicans largely rejecting mail-in voting since Mr. Trump seeded doubts about the method in 2020, delays associated with counting mail-in ballots are unlikely to be a factor. But that’s not a guarantee.
Wisconsin election officials were unable to begin processing mail-in ballots until the polls opened Tuesday morning. And many major cities in the state, including Milwaukee and Green Bay, are not releasing any ballot results in early in-person voting and mail-in ballots until all are counted, according to Riley Vetterkind. , public information officer for the Wisconsin Elections Commission. It may be late.
Ms. Kleefisch is expected to perform well in Milwaukee and its suburbs, so depending on how close the race is, those late batches of absenteeism and early polls could come into play.
As of Monday, nearly 278,000 mail-in ballots had been received by Wisconsin officials — about a third of those returned in the April 2020 primary at the start of the pandemic.
Vermont polls will be the first of the night to close at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, and officials won’t be able to start tabulating mail-in ballots until then. Mail-in voting is up from previous midterm elections, according to Eric Covey, chief of staff for the Vermont secretary of state. Mail-in ballots could have a significant impact in tight races, like the Democratic primary for the state’s lone House seat, and it could be late Tuesday night before preliminary results are available. in this race.
But Vermont officials expect most ballots to be counted before midnight, helped by a rule that mail-in ballots must be received by the end of Election Day. All cities and towns with populations over 1,000 are required to use electronic vote tabulators to count ballots, which will also speed up the process.
In Vermont and Connecticut, ballot counting is handled by cities rather than counties. Many city officials in both states are waiting until all mail and in-person votes have been counted to release the results, according to Stephen Ohlemacher, election decisions editor for The Associated Press. This could delay the release of results in places where mail-in voting is important.
Polls close in Connecticut at 8 p.m. Eastern. It is up to local authorities to decide whether to start counting mail-in ballots before or after in-person voting ends. Any ballots received after the close of the polls will not be counted.
Mr. Ohlemacher noted that Connecticut had trouble counting mail-in votes in previous elections. In 2018, it took officials until 4 a.m. after Election Day to count 89% of the vote. In November 2020, more than 45% of the votes had not been counted by midnight on election night.
Electoral officials around the world want to remind us that not all of the results we get on Tuesday night are official. This is unlikely to change race calls being made, but it usually takes states weeks to certify official results.
Reid J. Epstein contributed report.