When will we know the winners of the Senate runoffs in Georgia? Be prepared to wait

Georgia polls opened Tuesday for U.S. Senate runoff elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans will control the chamber, but we may have to wait a while to learn the outcome.

Voting locations opened at 7 a.m. Eastern time and close at 7 p.m. Absentee ballots have to be placed in a drop box by 7 p.m. or received by mail by the time polls close in order to be counted.

The Georgia State Election Board has extended drop box cutoff times for absentee ballots like it did for the November election, and counties were required to begin scanning and processing ballots a week before the election, but they can’t start actually counting the votes until after polls close.

Runoff elections are being held for Georgia’s races for U.S. Senate after none of the candidates got at least 50% of the vote in the Nov. 3 election. Former Sen. David Perdue, a Republican, is running against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, and Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler is running against Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat. Loeffler was appointed after former Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down, so the special election will decide who will serve the remainder of Isakson’s term, which ends in 2022. Perdue’s first term as a senator officially expired as the new Congress convened on Sunday.

There could be a delay in learning the winners of the election due to the time it takes to count mail-in ballots. For November’s general election, the Associated Press declared President-elect Joe Biden the winner of Georgia on Nov. 19 — more than two weeks after Election Day.

Walter Jones, spokesman for the office of Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said there could be a similar delay due to the extra time it takes to count mail ballots, Reuters reported.

“We may be looking at several days,” Jones said.

As of Tuesday, more than 3 million early votes had been cast, accounting for 40% of registered voters in the state, according to the U.S. Elections Project. At least 1 million mail ballots have been accepted out of the 1.3 million ballots that were requested, comprising 17.8% of registered voters.

“Much like in November, it may be hard to know any winners on Tuesday night due to early voting being available in Georgia and the closeness of the races in current polling averages,” Ashley Koning, assistant research professor and director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University, told MarketWatch.

“We may also see contrasting patterns in the vote count in terms of who is ahead and who is behind in the early ballots versus those cast on the day of, much like we did two months ago,” Koning said.

Republicans are expected to have an early lead on Election Day because conservative areas of Georgia tend to report results more quickly and in-person votes, which favored Republicans during the general election in November, are usually released earlier, according to The New York Times. Democratic-leaning counties, like suburban Atlanta, have typically taken longer to count ballots.

For the general election, President Donald Trump appeared to have an early lead in Georgia but lost to President-elect Joe Biden after all the mail-in ballots were counted. Biden ended up winning 52.4% of the absentee ballots in the state.

Because the races are so close, there is also a chance of a recount if the margin between candidates is less than or equal to half a percentage point and if the losing candidate wants a recount.

This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 9:36 AM with the headline "When will we know the winners of the Senate runoffs in Georgia? Be prepared to wait."