Undecided races of the 2024 election: Live results and analysis

Yesterday, election officials in Minnesota conducted a partial recount of Minnesota state House District 14B, one of two unprojected races that will determine control of the chamber. It barely changed the result: Democratic state Rep. Dan Wolgamott's lead went from 191 votes to 190 votes. The AP has not yet declared a winner in the district, but there doesn't appear to be anything in the way of Wolgamott being certified as the winner next month.

Last week, a recount similarly upheld Democrats' considerably narrower lead in state House District 54A, but we may not have heard the last of this district. The Republican candidate is expected to file a court challenge this week over the result — specifically, about 20 absentee ballots that aren't accounted for.

If Democrats win both districts, as expected, the Minnesota state House would be tied with 67 Democrats and 67 Republicans, forcing the two parties to share power. Under this scenario, each committee would have co-chairs — one Democrat and one Republican — but it is unclear who would serve as speaker.

If you're reading this blog, you probably know that we are still waiting for all the ballots to be counted in a couple of unresolved U.S. House races in California. But one thing you might not know is why California takes so long to count all its votes.

California isn't alone in this regard. Every state waits at least some period of time after Election Day to count certain types of ballots, such as overseas and military absentees (which take time to arrive) and provisional ballots (which must be double-checked to make sure the voter is eligible).

But there are some reasons why California takes especially long. First of all, California conducts its elections predominantly by mail, and mail-in ballots take longer to process and count because their signatures have to be verified, they have to be removed from envelopes, etc. This is also the reason other predominantly vote-by-mail states, like Nevada, take a long time to count. But one issue California has that Nevada doesn't is sheer size. The largest state in the union casts literally millions of votes, and it simply takes time to count them all.

California law also encourages a leisurely counting pace. The state allows mail ballots to arrive as late as one week after Election Day and still count (as long as they are postmarked by Election Day), which creates the opportunity for more people's votes to count, but also means results will take longer. California also doesn't require counties to finalize their results until 30 days after the election, and some counties take full advantage of that window — there was an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times last week about Lake County, California, and why officials there don't feel a sense of urgency to finish counting.

Of course, another part of the story is that if election officials had more resources (such as more advanced machines and more staffers), they would be able to count more quickly. According to a poll earlier this year by the pro-voting-rights Brennan Center for Justice, 83% of election officials said they needed more resources to keep up with administrative and security needs, and overall, election officials received $1 billion less in federal funding this year than in the 2020 election.

Election Day may have been 20 days ago, but we at 538 are still tracking a handful of unresolved races across the country! Over the weekend, ballot counting continued in California, but little changed in the 13th and 45th Districts — the two California districts where a winner has still not been projected. Republican Rep. John Duarte and Democrat Derek Tran are both clinging to small leads.

The only other House race that is still TBD is Iowa's 1st District, where a recount is currently underway. It's not expected to reverse Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks's lead, but we'll know for sure by Monday, Dec. 2. A few other downballot races are also being recounted: Today, there will be a hand recount of a Minnesota state House district that could decide control of the chamber, and the North Carolina Supreme Court recount must be concluded by Wednesday. We are also waiting to see if recounts will be requested in two extremely tight ballot-measure campaigns, over the legalization of sports betting in Missouri and the repeal of ranked-choice voting in Alaska.

Last night, California counties updated their vote tallies, and the margin in the state's 13th District U.S. House race is now just 0.1 percentage points. Republican Rep. John Duarte leads Democrat Adam Gray 50.05% to 49.95%, a raw vote margin of only 194 votes. It appears that there are roughly 5,000 unprocessed ballots left to count in the district, around half of which will come from Gray's home base of Merced County. But as Nathaniel pointed out last night, the race is so close that it could come down to "uncured ballots," which are ballots that have a signature issue that voters need to go and fix in order for their vote to count. There may be around 4,000 of those in the district, too. How this race will pan out is really anyone's guess at this point.