Georgia election 2026: What to expect on election night

ATLANTA — The midterm election is almost upon us and many will want to see the results.

But the process takes time, even for just the preliminary counts.

So, with the election Tuesday, here’s what you can expect on election night, from casting your ballot to potentially having winners declared.

Starting with casting a ballot on election day, voters will need to make sure they have their ID with them.

When they go in to vote, and identity is confirmed, you’ll then go to a voting machine to make your selections.

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After that, your ballot is scanned into a machine and saved on a memory card.

Once the polls close, the memory cards are taken to the county election headquarters and uploaded to a secure, offline server.

Offline servers have no connection to any type of signal and stay away from the internet.

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After being uploaded to the secure server, results are sent to the Georgia Sec. of State’s Office.

Early voting tallies and absentee voting ballots are also scanned and saved on a memory card, with none of them able to be counted until election day.

The numbers for early and absentee votes have to be reported to the Sec. of State’s Office by 8 p.m. on election night. Polls officially close at 7 p.m., an hour earlier.

Then, on election night, even when your county or the Sec. of State’s Office say 100% of precincts reporting, the results listed are not official.

The total could be impacted by several factors, like provisional ballots, military ballots or overseas ballots not being included until Friday after election day.

By law, those particular types of ballots can be counted until Friday afternoon the same week as the election.

To become official, results have to be certified by the county by the Monday after the election by 5 p.m. and a final certification by the Sec. of State’s Office by Nov. 20.

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