The 2022 midterm elections in the United States will be held on November 8, 2022. All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be up for grabs in this midterm election year.

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Here’s a guide to what happens after Election Day:

Senate runoff election

Although there is no presidential election this year, Georgia is hosting a new Senate election. And a second runoff will take place on December 6 if neither Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock nor his Republican opponent Herschel Walker receive more than 50% of the vote.

A blue shift

A blue shift or red mirage occurs when election day results indicate a Republican lead, but adding provisional and absentee ballots to the tally results in a Democratic triumph.

It’s partly because many Americans are voting early and by mail this year; according to CNN, over 25 million Americans have already cast ballots. More over 30% of votes in California’s mail-in elections are typically uncounted by the following day.

It’s likely that further races in California will need to be held if the contest for control of the House is tight and those contests are close as well.

Early voting

Democrats are once again taking advantage of early voting and voting by mail in many crucial states. Democrats have cast more early ballots than Republicans in states like Pennsylvania where close statewide races are anticipated. Additionally, the Pennsylvania does not permit the counting of mail ballots until Election Day, thus the procedure can take some time and the momentum might change as the votes are tallied.

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Canvassing and important dates

Vote tallying, or canvassing, takes place at both the local and state levels. Because of the canvassing, the election results are not actually finalised until some time following election day. A hand counting experiment will be conducted this year in one rural Nevada county.

Election results certification often begins at the local level, where ballots are counted in the days after Election Day.

After those local tabulations, a separate canvass is conducted at the state level. Various state laws control how local officials must conduct surveys and submit their findings to the state governments.

Most jurisdictions require local officials to certify election results within two weeks, while other states provide longer time frames.

Local officials in the crucial election states of Michigan, Ohio, and Arizona have up to three weeks to certify the results. In Colorado and California, they have at least 22 days.

Recounts

Normally, this certification process doesn’t draw much notice, but at the moment, when Republicans in particular are casting doubt on the fairness of US elections and many people continue to reject the results, expect closer examination. There are several recount rules, as well as financial arrangements. When a vote is close (typically by less than 0.5%), some jurisdictions automatically recount the results, and in other states, candidates can choose to request a recount. Rarely do recounts produce a different winner.

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Lawsuits

Some of these canvass dates may change if lawsuits (spoiler alert: there will be lawsuits) about a particular race or the results in a particular county acquire traction after Election Day.

In Arizona, the statewide canvass is meant to take place on the fourth Monday after the election, per NCSL, although state law permits a delay of up to 30 days if a county need more time.

There is no set date for a statewide canvass in Pennsylvania, the location of numerous cases in 2020. If votes are close, the procedure could theoretically take a while.