What to expect as election returns start to come in Tuesday night.
The future of Democrat President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda hinges on two Senate runoff races in Georgia whose outcome might not be known for days after polls close on Tuesday. Public opinion polls show Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have about the same level of support as their Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Following are key facts on the vote-counting process and what to expect as election returns start to come in Tuesday night. WHY MIGHT THIS DRAG ON? Slow counting of Georgia’s mail ballots in November’s presidential election kept the world in the dark about who won the state until three days after polls closed. Biden ended up winning the state by less than 12,000 votes out of about 5 million cast. A similar delay could unfold after Tuesday’s contests if the races are really close, said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office of Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “We may be looking at several days,” Jones said, adding that the delay would mostly come from mail ballots returned on Election Day. Election officials cannot start counting ballots until 7 p.
