Here’s everything you need to know while waiting for Wisconsin’s election results

Election Day is finally here, and after polls close in Wisconsin at 8 p.m., what comes next? Here’s everything you need to know as you wait for results.

When will all of Wisconsin’s results be in?

There likely won’t be a clear picture on election night of which candidate won in Wisconsin, a crucial swing state. Instead, full results will likely be reported sometime on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

Why? It’s partly because of the state’s rules for counting absentee ballots.

While some states allow election workers to start counting absentee ballots ahead of time, in Wisconsin, poll workers can’t open or process the ballots until polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day. And when there are a large number of absentee ballots cast — as there were in 2020 and again this year —  this can be a time-consuming process, especially when the poll workers also have to manage day-of voting.

Another reason statewide results likely won’t be known on election night is that Milwaukee officials have said the city won’t have complete results posted until after midnight. As the state’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold, the results from Milwaukee are critical to have before the state can be called for either candidate.

All of Milwaukee’s absentee ballots are sent to a central count location to be processed and counted. The city reports the results all at once after they’ve been counted. Forty-one other municipalities across the state also use central count locations.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump spread conspiracy theories about the results of absentee voting in Milwaukee after the city released them overnight and they shifted the state to President Joe Biden. Trump and his allies falsely painted such late reporting of vote counts as fraudulent late-night ballot “dumps.” Recounts, court rulings and audits have proven many times that there is nothing fraudulent or illegal in late vote-counting.

In 2020, Wisconsin was called for Biden in the early afternoon on the day after the election.

In addition to the presidential race, it might take some time to count the votes in the race for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican businessman Eric Hovde, another close statewide race.

How are ballots counted in Wisconsin?

There are two types of ballots that need to be counted on Election Day in Wisconsin: absentee ballots and ballots cast in person on Election Day.

To vote on Election Day, voters have to state their address and show their photo ID to poll workers, who verify them against a certified poll book. The voter then signs the poll book and receives their ballot. After they’ve filled out the ballot, the voter inserts their ballot into the tabulator, which counts it and adds it to the result tally.

For absentee ballots, poll workers first examine the certification envelope the ballot is contained in to verify it has the voter’s signature and a witness signature and address, all of which are required. If it’s all there, they then remove the ballot from the envelope and insert the ballot into a tabulator to count it, and they mark the voter in the poll book as having voted.

Members of the public are allowed to observe the process of counting ballots at both central count sites and polling places.

What other results are we watching?

While Wisconsinites might not know the results of the presidential race before bedtime on election night, results in other races may be known sooner in races in which the amount of ballots needing to be counted is smaller. These include the eight U.S. House races on ballots around the state and races for the state Legislature.There is also a constitutional question on the ballot for Wisconsinites that seeks to clarify language about noncitizens voting in local elections, and for some a host of school referendums.