2026年11月3日 美国东部时间上午6:00 / CBS新闻
华盛顿——众议院和参议院的控制权可能不会在选举夜明朗化，2026年中期选举的部分结果将需要更长时间才能判定。但这并不反常，也并非有人声称的舞弊迹象。
在全国关注周二选举走向的同时，选举专家提醒选民不要轻信政客在无证据的情况下指控投票或计票存在舞弊。许多关键选举的竞争会十分胶着，而一旦结果接近，往往会延迟公布。
选举创新与研究中心执行主任兼创始人、CBS新闻撰稿人戴维·贝克尔表示，他甚至不确定美国人能否在选举夜就知晓参众两院的控制权归属。
“如果能知道，那说明这场选举出现了压倒性的浪潮，”贝克尔说道。
“表现不佳的候选人会散布相关谎言和虚假信息”
贝克尔称，一类候选人很可能会频繁且早早地投诉选举公正性问题。
“几乎可以肯定，那些自认表现不佳的候选人会散布谎言和虚假信息，试图填补信息真空，”贝克尔说，并补充称他认为特朗普总统“很可能会在选举夜散布选举相关的谎言和虚假信息，就像他在2020年做的那样”。
上周，当被问及是否会接受中期选举的任何结果时，特朗普回应道：“只要是诚实选举，我就会接受。”
布伦南正义中心选举与政府项目副主席劳伦斯·诺登对选举夜及之后的虚假信息传播感到担忧。他表示，虚假信息“在投票到出结果这段时间会大行其道”，并指出竞争激烈的选举会让这段“等待时间”更长。
“当竞争极其接近时，计票速度快慢其实无关紧要，”诺登说道。
“我们对计票速度的感知与实际计票速度无关”
贝克尔指出：“我们对计票速度的感知与实际计票速度无关。”选举官员“正全力完成尽可能多选票的非正式计票并公布结果”，他说，“但我们的感知很大程度上取决于媒体何时宣布选举结果。”
包括CBS新闻在内的新闻媒体会基于已计选票的分析来预测选举获胜者，这在一定程度上取决于获胜优势的大小。通常来说，获胜优势越大，越能更快预测出获胜者，不过这也取决于新闻媒体对剩余未投票数及投票类型的判断。
美国最大的州加利福尼亚州，部分选举可能会很快出结果，而另一些则可能需要几天甚至几周时间。亚利桑那州立大学民主力学实验室执行主任威廉·盖茨指出，加州一些选举“会在晚上8点01分就宣布结果，因为大家都知道民主党必胜”，这类选举不会引起太多关注。
但他补充道：“我们有一些备受关注的初选——洛杉矶市长选举、加州州长选举，这两场选举最终确定谁进入大选都花了几天时间。”
这些受关注的初选结果迟迟未出的部分原因在于邮寄选票：如果邮寄选票的邮戳日期在选举日当天，可在选举日之后一周内提交，而这类选票的计票过程更慢。加州所有登记选民均可选择邮寄投票，选票会直接寄送给他们。
邮寄选票需要进行签名验证，选举日前收到的选票可提前处理，但要等到投票结束后才会计票。选举日当天或之后收到的邮寄选票，因需经过签名验证流程，计票会更慢。
盖茨曾是马里科帕县监事会成员，深知被置于放大镜下的感受。2020年美国总统选举中，民主党人乔·拜登在共和党倾向的亚利桑那州获胜，这是自1996年比尔·克林顿以来首位民主党人做到这一点，当时马里科帕县经历了严格审查。尽管福克斯新闻在选举夜就宣布亚利桑那州支持拜登，但CBS新闻等其他媒体直到9天后——2020年11月12日才预测他获胜。盖茨表示，他的家人因那次选举收到了威胁。
“实际上，亚利桑那州的计票时间并不比其他州更长，”盖茨说道。
“但他们能攻击我们，而你们知道，他们却没有收到任何（质疑），原因在于我们的选举竞争非常激烈，”盖茨表示，“我们是仅存的少数摇摆州之一，而马里科帕县堪称典型的摇摆县。”
贝克尔表示，选举夜根本无法完成所有选票的计票。
“选举官员从未在选举夜完成全部计票，”他说，“这是不可能的。我们的选票流程太复杂了。因此计票需要一定时间，而且每个州都需要数周时间来认证选举结果。”
邮寄投票与计票
不过，有些州的计票时间确实比其他州更长，尤其是邮寄选票数量多的州。在宾夕法尼亚州和威斯康星州，计票较慢的原因还包括州法律规定选举官员在选举日上午之前不得处理邮寄选票。
除加州外，科罗拉多州、夏威夷州、内华达州、俄勒冈州、佛蒙特州、犹他州、华盛顿州以及哥伦比亚特区会自动向所有活跃登记选民邮寄选票。
而邮寄选票、提前现场投票以及选举日投票的选民构成可能存在差异，这意味着在计票和公布结果的过程中，夜间及之后几天的票数可能会突然发生变化。
“选票已经投了，”诺登说，“只是不是同时计完所有选票而已。”
他用篮球比赛来比喻计票过程：“就像你在看一场已经结束的比赛的录像，比赛确实结束了，但我们不知道选票里的内容，要等选举夜才能知道，而此时选举早已经结束了。”
“你在看比赛录像时知道尼克斯队在比赛最后时刻逆转了湖人队，但这并不意味着尼克斯队能在比赛结束后再追加分数，”诺登说。
特朗普称邮寄投票是“邮寄作弊”，并抨击这是民主党推行的舞弊行为。但贝克尔表示，直到2020年特朗普因疫情期间邮寄选票增加而公开抨击时，邮寄投票才开始对民主党有利。
“由于邮寄选票，尤其是逾期送达的选票，通常是最后公布的，所以有些地方确实会出现‘红色 mirage（红色错觉）’‘蓝色浪潮’效应，”贝克尔说，“我认为自2020年选举以来这种情况有所缓和，但由于这些邮寄选票较晚公布，你依然能看到这种效应。”“红色错觉”效应指的是，前期现场投票结果可能显示共和党领先，但夜间后续计票的批量邮寄选票可能会让选举结果转向民主党。
例如，贝克尔提到2020年宾夕法尼亚州的情况，该州的邮寄选票没有像加州那样在数天内公开公布，因为选举官员不能在选举日之前开始处理这些选票。
“所以选举日的选票先出来了，”贝克尔说，“这些选票倾向共和党。”随后，邮寄选票开始处理，“这些选票绝大多数倾向民主党，但这类选票的计票结果公布得晚得多，因为这是宾夕法尼亚州法律的要求。”
贝克尔还给出了周二需要记住的一点：“如果听到候选人抱怨投票流程，我不知道他们是赢是输，但我可以告诉你，他们认为自己输了，因为获胜者不会抱怨投票流程，”贝克尔说，“获胜者会让投票流程正常推进。”
Why some 2026 races won’t be decided on election night, and why that doesn’t mean foul play
November 3, 2026 / 6:00 AM EST / CBS News
Washington— Control of the House and Senate may not be immediately clear on election night, and some of the 2026 midterm election calls will take longer than others. But that’s not unusual or an indication of fraud, as some candidates may claim.
As the nation watches to see how the elections unfold on Tuesday night, election experts advise voters against listening to politicians who cry foul without offering evidence of fraud as ballots are being cast or counted. Many key races will be close. And when they’re close, the results are likely to come later.
David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a CBS News contributor, says he has some doubts about whether Americans will even know who controls the House or Senate on election night.
“If we do, then there’s a very big wave going on,” Becker said.
Candidates “who think they’re doing poorly are going to be spreading lies and disinformation about it”
Becker says there is a type of candidate who’s likely to complain early and often about the integrity of the election.
“It’s almost certain that the candidates who think they’re doing poorly are going to be spreading lies and disinformation about it, trying to fill that vacuum,” Becker said, adding that he believes President Trump “will probably spread lies and disinformation about the election on election night because he did it in 2020.”
When the president was asked last week if he would accept the results of the midterms, whatever the outcome, he responded, “I will if they’re honest elections.”
Lawrence Norden, vice president of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, is concerned about the spread of misinformation on election night and afterward. He says it “flourishes in that period of time between voting and getting the results” and suggests that “period of time” will be longer when the race is close.
“When it’s super close, it’s not going to matter how fast you are counting the ballots,” Norden said.
“Our perception of counting speed is not related to actual counting speed”
Becker points out that “our perception of counting speed is not related to actual counting speed.” Election officials “are racing to unofficially count as many ballots as possible and report them out,” he said, “but our perception is largely driven by when the media calls elections.”
News outlets, including CBS News, project election winners based on their analysis of the ballots that have been counted, and this is partly driven by the margin of victory. The bigger the margin of victory, the more quickly a winner can usually be projected, though this also depends on the determination by news outlets of the amount of the vote that remains outstanding and the character of those votes.
California, the nation’s largest state, is likely to have both races that are called very quickly and others that could take days or even weeks to call. William Gates, executive director of the Arizona State University’s Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory, noted that for some California contests, “they call the race at 8:01 (p.m.) because we all know the Democrat’s going to win.” Those races don’t attract much notice.
But he added that “we had some [primaries] that people were paying a lot of attention to — mayor of Los Angeles, the California governor’s race.” It took several days to finalize who would move on to the general elections in both those races.
Part of the reason it took so long to determine the outcome of those closely watched primaries is that mail ballots — which can be received until a week after Election Day if they are postmarked that day — took longer to be counted. All registered voters in California may vote by mail and are sent ballots.
Mail ballots must undergo signature verification, and those received before Election Day can be processed beforehand, but they are not counted until after polls close. Mail ballots received on Election Day or later end up being counted more slowly since they must undergo the signature verification process before they can be counted.
Gates, a former member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, knows what it’s like to live under a microscope. Arizona’s Maricopa County endured intense scrutiny over the 2020 presidential election when Joe Biden won the Republican-leaning state, the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1996. Though Fox News called Arizona for Biden on election night, CBS News and other networks did not project him as the winner for nine more days, until [Nov. 12, 2020]. Gates said his family received threats over that election.
“The reality is that Arizona doesn’t really take any longer to count the votes than other states,” Gates said.
“But the reason that they can attack us while they, you know, don’t receive any comments is because we have very close elections,” Gates said. “We are one of the few swing states left, and Maricopa is sort of the quintessential swing county.”
Becker said all the ballots simply can’t be counted on election night.
“Election officials have never completed counting on election night,” he said. “It can’t be done. Our ballots are way too complex. So it’s going to take some time, and every state takes weeks to certify the election.”
Mail voting and counting the ballots
Still, some states do take longer than others to count votes, especially states with high numbers of mail-in ballots. In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the counting is also slowed by the fact that state law prevents election officials from even processing mail ballots until the morning of Election Day.
In addition to California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Utah, Washington and the District of Columbia automatically send mail ballots to all active registered voters.
And the voter composition for mail-in votes, early-in-person votes, and Election Day votes can look different, meaning numbers can appear to shift suddenly throughout the night and days after, as ballots are processed and counted.
“The votes are already in,” Norden said. “They just all aren’t counted at the same time.”
He used a basketball game to illustrate the counting process: “It’s like you are watching a recording of a game that already happened, right? So the game is over. But we don’t know what’s in those ballots, and we find out over election night, but it’s already done.”
“The fact that you know the Knicks come back against the Lakers at the end of a game when you’re watching on the videotape of the game doesn’t mean that the Knicks got to add points after the game was over,” Norden said.
Mr. Trump has called mail-in voting “[mail-in cheating]” and knocked it as a fraud carried out by Democrats. But mail-in voting didn’t skew Democratic until 2020, Becker said, when Mr. Trump railed against mail voting that increased during the pandemic.
“Since mail ballots, especially those that are delivered late, are among the last reported, you do see this ‘red mirage,’ ‘blue wave’ effect in some places,” Becker said. “It’s moderated, I think, since the 2020 election, but you do see (it) because those mail ballots are being reported out late.” The “red mirage” effect describes how early results of in-person voting may show a Republican leading, but batches of mail-in votes that are processed and counted later in the evening could swing the election to the Democrat in the race.
For example, Becker pointed to Pennsylvania in 2020, where mail ballots weren’t reported publicly for days because unlike California, election officials couldn’t begin processing them until Election Day.
“So the Election Day votes came out first,” Becker said. “Those skewed Republican.” Then, the mail votes were processed. “And those were overwhelmingly Democratic, but the batches of those were getting reported out much later, because that’s what was required under Pennsylvania law.”
Becker offered one more thing to remember Tuesday night: “If you hear candidates complaining about the process, I don’t know whether they won or lost, but I can tell you that they think they lost, because the winners do not complain about the process,” Becker said. “The winners let the process play out.”
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