SALT LAKE CITY — After a night of unprecedented voter turnout, a tightly contested congressional race and high-stakes ballot measures in Utah, there are still some significant question marks.

But, this should be expected.

All counties finished reporting results shortly before 1 a.m. election night. In roughly the same overnight hour, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox tweeted out a reminder:

"Remember, nothing is final until the canvas in 2 weeks," his tweet read.

Why the delay?

Counting and verifying ballots takes time.

"We cannot speed the process up a little bit," Cox told KSL Newsradio's "Dave and Dujanovic" Wednesday morning.

Also, a lot of people showed up to vote yesterday, with turnout hovering right around presidential-election-year numbers, Cox tweeted Wednesday.

Utah voters reported hourslong waits in some areas on Tuesday. For instance, in Utah County, where residents saw their first vote-by-mail election, voters were in line all night. Literally: Pleasant Grove's final voter, who got in line shortly before 8 p.m., cast her ballot at 11:27 p.m, KSL TV's Sam Penrod reported.

But, according to Cox, his office previously told the county to better prepare, but to no avail.

"We expected long lines because it’s the first vote-by-mail election there. We warned the county, but unfortunately they didn’t adjust," he said in a tweet."

Outstanding ballots

Another reason races are trickier to call at this point: Ballots mailed Monday didn't show up until early Wednesday evening. There were more than 278,000 ballots yet to be counted statewide as of 5:15 p.m.

Dates to remember

A final reason for the delay in official results: This is just how things go with elections. Official election canvasses typically take place after the election. This year's will be on Nov. 20, two weeks after Election Day. But Utahns may get some nuggets of information before then because the state will report updated tallies at 3 p.m. on Friday, on Tuesday, Nov. 13 and Friday, Nov. 16. Updated results will appear on the state election results page.

(Pro tip: If you aren't sure whether the tallies have been updated, go to the results page, then click on "county completion report." That will show you the last time each specific county reported results.)

Outside these dates, the state may release additional results as they become available. If it does this, it will tweet out a heads up from @ElectionsUtah.

For what is ostensibly the closest yet-to-be-called major race in Utah, 4th Congressional District between Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and incumbent Rep. Mia Love, the results are still too close to be called. According to Cox, we'll have a "pretty good idea" of how the race will shape up by Friday.

Things looked close Wednesday: As of late Wednesday afternoon, McAdams was at 51.45 percent and Love at 48.55 percent on the state's website. And Cox predicts "it's going to get closer."

He compared the race to Mia Love's House run against then-incumbent Jim Matheson in 2012 that saw a 700-vote difference between candidates.

Cox told "Dave and Dujanovic" that by Tuesday, the state should know enough to call the race.

Why voting still matters

Informed voting is "foundational," Cox told "Dave and Dujanovic," although Utah has been "really bad at it, unfortunately, recently." Case in point: Utah was 39th in the nation for voter turnout in 2016. However, this year's turnout "far exceeded our expectations," Cox said.

He reiterated that people need to continue to exercise their right to vote, year after year.

"If we're going to continue as a democratic republic, it only works if people show up and people participate and people get informed." Email: wevans@deseretnews.com Twitter: whitevs7

Related topics