In the past, close elections have had significant real-life policy impacts—as examples, we can point to how 312 votes decided whether millions could access affordable health insurance or how one vote broke a tie in a legislative race that ended up shaping state law. Yet, despite the large sums of money and energy that are often spent on campaigning, election results are sometimes unclear even after polls close and the final count is complete.
The process of reviewing and verifying the informal results reported on Election Night and in the days following the election is known as the canvass. The canvass ensures that all valid ballots have been counted and that no clerical errors were made in the results. In some states, this includes counting absentee ballots that were received by the deadline. In others, it includes a recanvass of provisional, military/overseas, and special ballots that were not counted on Election Day. The results from the canvass are then certified by local and state officials.
The unofficial results displayed on this page are based on the initial results reported to us by each county board of elections and may change as valid ballots continue to be processed in the days following Election Day and county boards upload updated results. The official results for the Federal and State offices (including President) will be certified after a full recount is completed, which could take up to three weeks. The recount process may include a hand recount, where individual ballots are examined by election officials and representatives of both candidates or a machine recount, where each ballot is fed back through the scanner to make sure it was counted properly the first time.