The votes have been cast. Now comes the race to finish counting — and the potential legal fights

By Jeremy Herb, CNN

Election workers are tabulating ballots in key states that will determine the balance of power in Congress as well as more than three dozen statehouses. Because of differing laws, some states have tallied nearly all their ballots — while others may not finish for several days.

States are preparing for the prospect of lawsuits in the coming hours and days. Even before the polls had closed Tuesday, former President Donald Trump and his allies were spreading baseless claims of voter fraud, a repeat of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen. Yet, elections officials from coast to coast reported few problems at the polls on Tuesday, saying that the election went smoothly beyond isolated and mostly minor problems.

In Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, some counting was delayed due to ballots that could not be successfully read at polling places Tuesday. Those ballots were deposited in secure boxes and will be read starting Wednesday morning, said Bill Gates, chair of the county board of supervisors. The county had tabulation issues that arose from a printer problem at about 60 vote centers, though Gates said no voters were turned away from the polls for that reason.

But that didn’t stop Trump and his allies from baselessly claiming the issue was a sign of voter fraud, while the former president falsely alleged on his social media account that the Arizona election was being stolen “with bad Machines and DELAY.”

Republicans filed a lawsuit to try to extend voting hours in the county’s polls due to the voting machine problems, alleging there were long delays, but the bid was rejected by a judge who said there was no evidence of voters unable to vote.

As election workers work to finish counting the state’s ballots, Arizona’s Senate race between incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly and GOP challenger Blake Masters remains too early to call early Wednesday morning. Gates said Maricopa County expects that between 95-99% of all ballots would be counted by Friday. He also said the county could see more legal action.

“Elections have become more litigious over the past few years. I would not be surprised to see lawsuits,” Gates said. “If we see those lawsuits, we’re certainly staffed up as a county to address those.”

Arizona was one of the key states where Trump and his allies spread false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election — and his endorsed candidates in the state for governor and secretary of state have touted his lies about the 2020 election. Maricopa County Republicans launched a so-called “audit” in 2021 conducted by a GOP firm that ultimately affirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Counting ballots for ‘a few days’

In Pennsylvania, acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman said that it would take “a few days” for the state’s unofficial election results to be complete, calling on “voters, candidates and the media” to be patient.

“Election officials in all 67 counties are well aware that the eyes of the nation are on the Keystone State tonight,” Chapman said Tuesday evening. “And they are counting as fast as they can. But they are also prioritizing accuracy over speed, as they should.”

In 2020, Pennsylvania’s presidential election wasn’t called for several days after Election Day, and it was one of the states where Trump’s team aggressively challenged the results. But CNN and other news organizations had already projected early Wednesday that both Democrats John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro had won their respective elections in the state for Senate and governor.

Still, Pennsylvania is gearing up for a significant legal challenge over the status of several thousand mail-in ballots that were signed with an invalid date. Last week, the state’s Supreme Court ruled those ballots should not be counted, but Fetterman’s campaign sued in federal court to count the mail-in votes.

In Georgia, Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling said because of how close the Senate race was between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker and the state’s runoff rules — which require a 50% majority to avoid a runoff — he wasn’t optimistic voters would know who won until Wednesday at the earliest.

“With the number of votes out there, there is no telling where that can go and who that is going to favor or not. So that is the one race we may not have full clarity on before we go to bed tonight,” Sterling said Tuesday evening.

In other states, there was optimism the vote count could be wrapped up more quickly than in 2020. In Wisconsin, where the state has competitive Senate and gubernatorial contests, election officials in Milwaukee said they expected results to come in hours earlier than during the 2020 election, when the city took until after 3 a.m. local time to finish counting and transmitting results to county officials. The speedier process was in part because there were only a third as many absentee ballots this year, said Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg.

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CNN’s Zachary Cohen, Scott Glover, Christina Maxouris, Jason Morris, Bob Ortega and Casey Tolan contributed to this report.