Senate majority could take weeks after Election Day to determine

Voters hoping to immediately know who will control the U.S. Senate in the next Congress may be in for a shock on election night as it could take days or weeks to tabulate results in key states…

With the Senate race between Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman expected to be very close, R Street Institute resident elections fellow Matt Germer told Fox News Digital that the suspense could drag on for days at least.

“It’s possible that Pennsylvania takes a good while,” Germer said. “They had a problem in 2020 where so many more people were sending in their ballot by mail. But they, the election administrators, weren’t allowed to pre-process those ballots. … What that meant was they just had this giant glut of mail-in ballots and a ton of administrative work to do.”

…Unlike Pennsylvania, Arizona does allow processing of mail-in ballots before Election Day, something Germer said will likely speed up that state’s ability to deliver a result. However, Cochise County will count all of its ballots by hand, which could delay a final projection.

But the state that may cause the biggest delay in knowing the Senate majority is one that could very well have a result on election night: Georgia.

That’s because Georgia law requires its U.S. Senate candidates to win at least 50% of the statewide vote to win a general election. In a very close race between Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and GOP challenger Herschel Walker, a few percentage points of the vote going to libertarian Chase Oliver could hold both under 50% and rigger a runoff.

“Once again, the balance of power in the Senate may come down to a Georgia runoff,” Germer said…

Other battlegrounds, including Ohio, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, have a record of delivering results on election night. It’s not expected they’ll have issues doing the same this year.

Even if some states do take time to figure out who the winner is due to inefficient systems, Germer said, voters shouldn’t assume there’s fraud.

“It can be frustrating as a voter to not have resolution immediately, especially in our culture now,” he said. “We can rest assured that the processes that we have across the country will give an accurate result.”