Everyone is staring at the map. It’s been days, or maybe it just feels like it, and those two stubborn blocks of the Southwest are still shaded in that non-committal grey. You’re refreshing the page. Your friends are texting you theories. It feels like a glitch in the matrix, honestly. But if you’re wondering why haven't Arizona and Nevada been called, the answer isn’t a conspiracy or a technical breakdown. It’s actually a mix of very specific state laws, a literal mountain of paper, and a geography that makes "quick" almost impossible.
Counting votes in the desert is slow.
It’s just slow.
In Arizona, particularly in Maricopa County, the sheer volume of mail-in ballots that arrive on Election Day—what officials call "late earlies"—creates a massive bottleneck. Nevada has its own quirk: a law that allows ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive within four days. When the margins are razor-thin, no math-minded decision desk at a major network is going to risk a "call" until those piles are processed.
The Maricopa "Late Early" Problem
Arizona isn't like Florida. In Florida, they process mail ballots as they come in, so by 9:00 PM on election night, you basically know the score. Arizona? Not so much. A huge percentage of voters in Phoenix and Tucson love their mail ballots, but they don't always mail them. They walk them into a polling place on Tuesday.
This creates a massive logistical nightmare. These ballots have to be transported to a central facility, the signatures have to be verified by a real human being comparing them to a digital file, and then—only then—can they be fed into a machine.
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer has often pointed out that this verification process is what protects the integrity of the vote, but it’s also the thing that keeps you awake at 2:00 AM wondering what’s happening. You can't just flip a switch. It’s a manual, tedious, high-stakes slog. If the margin between candidates is 10,000 votes and there are 300,000 "late earlies" sitting in boxes, no statistician is going to call that race. They can't. The "math" hasn't even been invited to the party yet.
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Nevada’s Postmark Grace Period
Now, look over at Nevada. It’s a different beast entirely. In 2021, Nevada shifted to a system where every registered voter is mailed a ballot. That’s a lot of paper moving through the USPS.
The kicker is the postmark law.
If a voter in Reno drops their ballot in a mailbox on Tuesday afternoon, it might not hit the counting office until Thursday or Friday. By law, Nevada must count those. Then you have the "cure" period. If a signature doesn't match or someone forgot to sign the envelope, Nevada law gives voters several days to fix—or "cure"—their ballot.
In a tight race, those cured ballots are the difference between a win and a loss. Nevada’s Clark County, home to Las Vegas, is where the bulk of the votes live. They are dealing with high turnover, transient populations, and a heavy reliance on mail. They aren't being lazy. They are following a timeline that was literally written into the state code.
Why Decision Desks Are So Terrified
You’ve probably noticed that the TV networks are much more cautious than they used to be. Remember the 2000 election? Or even the 2020 cycle? The people running the "Decision Desks" at places like the Associated Press or Fox News are looking at "expected vote" totals.
But in Arizona and Nevada, "expected vote" is a moving target.
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If a county official says they have 90% of the vote in, but then realizes there’s a forgotten drop box or a massive surge of provisional ballots, that 90% suddenly becomes 82%. If a network calls a state and then has to take it back? That's a professional death sentence.
The analysts are looking at "stratified samples." They want to know if the remaining mail-in ballots are coming from Republican-leaning areas or Democratic-leaning areas. In Arizona, the "late earlies" have historically trended differently than the "early earlies." It’s a seesaw. One day the lead narrows, the next day it expands. Until the number of outstanding ballots is smaller than the lead one candidate has, the state stays grey.
Misconceptions About the Delay
People often think "no call" means "something is wrong."
"Why haven't Arizona and Nevada been called? Must be fraud." You'll see that all over social media. But honestly, the delay is usually a sign that the security measures are actually working. Verification takes time. Signature matching takes time. Bipartisan observers watching every single step takes time.
If they wanted to cheat, they’d do it fast. Doing it slow, in front of cameras, with spreadsheets and public updates, is the opposite of how a "fix" works.
Provisional Ballots and the "Cure" Process
Another reason for the holdup is the provisional ballot. These are given to people whose eligibility is questioned at the polling place—maybe they moved and didn't update their address, or the system says they already requested a mail ballot. These cannot be counted until the county confirms the person is a real, eligible voter who hasn't voted elsewhere.
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- Arizona: Voters have five days after the election to "cure" a signature issue.
- Nevada: The period is similar, often extending nearly a week after the polls close.
Think about that. If you’re a candidate and you’re down by 500 votes, you are going to fight for every single one of those provisional and uncured ballots. Your lawyers are on the ground. The state isn't called because the candidates themselves haven't given up, and the math doesn't yet force them to.
The Geography of the Count
Arizona and Nevada are huge states with concentrated populations. In Nevada, if you win Clark County big enough, you win the state. In Arizona, Maricopa is the whole game. Because these counties are so massive, their counting infrastructure is constantly under pressure.
In smaller states or states with more rural distributions, the count happens in smaller chunks across many offices. In the Southwest, it’s like trying to squeeze a gallon of water through a straw.
What to Do While You Wait
It’s frustrating. We live in an era of instant gratification, where you can order a pizza and watch it move on a map in real-time. Election results don't work like that, and they probably shouldn't.
If you want to stay sane, stop looking at the "percentage of precincts reporting." That number is almost meaningless in states that rely on mail-in voting. Instead, look for the "estimated ballots remaining." That is the only number that actually tells you how close we are to a call.
Once the "ballots remaining" number is lower than the gap between the two candidates, the math is over. The state gets called. Until then, we wait.
Next Steps for Tracking the Results:
- Check the Secretary of State Websites Directly: Skip the cable news commentary. Arizona and Nevada both have official dashboards that update as soon as a batch is processed.
- Monitor "The Drop": In Arizona, updates usually happen in large batches in the evening (Mountain Time). Don't expect a steady trickle; expect "dumps" of data.
- Understand the Margin of Litigation: If the gap is less than 0.5%, expect a recount. In that scenario, the state won't be "called" in any official capacity for weeks, even if a winner is "projected."
The delay isn't a bug. It's the feature of a system that prioritizes a paper trail over a 24-hour news cycle. Arizona and Nevada are just playing by the rules their legislatures wrote, and those rules aren't built for speed. They are built for a desert where everything, eventually, gets sorted out.