Nassau Likely Won't Know Election Results For At Least A Week

NASSAU COUNTY, NY — Election Day has come and gone, but the election isn't over. Many races have yet to be called, and it's leaving many in Nassau County wondering: what comes next? When will the election have concrete winners? Unfortunately, it won't be for a while.

Nassau County received a huge number of mail-in ballots, and more are on the way. There was also incredibly high voter turnout for this election. According to data from the state, Nassau has about 1.09 million registered voters. County election data shows that more than 578,000 people cast ballots on Election Day and in early voting. And so far, the county has received 144,183 absentee ballots.

But that won't be all of them. Ballots received before Nov. 10 can still be counted, so there will likely be even more to count by then.

If everyone in Nassau County voted, the current absentee ballots would make up 14 percent of the vote, which is a large chunk. But with the current number of votes, they make up 20 percent of all votes cast.

Because of that, most races have yet to be called, even if one candidate is leading. Half of the absentee ballots were sent to Democrats. The other half were split between Republicans (with 33,328 ballots, or 23 percent) and independent voters (with 31,982 ballots, or 22 percent). That means that many races are likely to change in favor of Democratic candidates in the coming days.

According to the county Board of Elections, because mail-in ballots can still be collected this week, they can't start being counted yet. The ballots won't start being counted until Nov. 10. The county did not say when they would be finished counting, but did say the results would be finalized by Nov. 28.

It's likely to be another week or two before there are any clear winners in the Nov. 3 races. Until then, everyone will just have to be patient.