Don’t wait up for presidential race results as tallying votes could take time

SAN ANTONIO – The polls will close at 7 p.m. Tuesday night in Bexar County, but the results won’t happen right away.

Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said early vote results will be posted shortly after the polls close, but it will likely be after midnight when all the votes are tallied.

The presidential race could end up taking several days, though, said Trinity University Political Science Professor Juan Sepulveda. In 2020, President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump wasn’t determined until the Saturday after the election.

This time around, seven battleground states are expected to determine the presidential race: Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Nebraska and Maine could also split their electoral votes between the two candidates, unlike the other 48 “winner takes all” states.

Given the role they could play in each candidate’s race to 270 electoral votes, the seven states’ individual election timelines could prevent an immediate result.

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Pennsylvania and Wisconsin election officials, for example, can’t begin tabulating early votes until Election Day, meaning a final count Tuesday night is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Sepulveda says voting by mail is popular in both Nevada and Arizona. Nevada’s ballots can arrive up to four days after Election Day, and the sheer scale of Arizona’s system means the counting will take time.

“It could be Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. When I mentioned if Nevada and Arizona become key plays players in this, we may be looking at the end of the week or the beginning of the weekend,” Sepulveda said.

Though the polling shows a close race, it’s possible for a blowout result one way or the other. Barring that, though, Sepulveda says not to be surprised if the vote counting lasts into the weekend.

“And so folks need to be prepared that if one side is kind of declaring themselves the winner on Tuesday night and it’s not a blowout, you’ve got to ignore that because that means a count isn’t done. It’s someone trying to set a narrative,” he said. “But that’s not the reality of what’s going to be needing to take place for the count to happen.”