When will we learn who won in New York and Florida?

 When will we learn who won in New York and Florida?

Election officials counting votes at the office of the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections on Tuesday afternoon in St. Petersburg, Fla.

New York and Florida have time limits: The most recent test of each state's effectiveness in counting ballots and reporting results on time will be a series of primaries on Tuesday, some of which will be quite contested.

First primary elections in New York since mail-in ballot counting was expedited, according to election experts, should shorten wait times. Few exceptions are made for the acceptance of absentee ballots after in-person voting is completed in Florida, therefore comparatively few votes will still be tallied after polls shut.

Close contests, however, may jeopardize the prompt reporting of results, the experts said.

Voting concludes one hour later in some areas of the Panhandle in the Central time zone than the majority of Florida's polls, which shut at 7 p.m. Eastern time.

Election supervisors in the 67 counties must submit any early voting and vote-by-mail results they have by that time to the state for reporting a half-hour after the polls close, according to Mark Ard, a spokesman for the Florida Department of State.

Soon after 8 p.m. Eastern time, the first results should surface on the state's election website. Until the counties have finished their counts, counties are obligated to give updates every 45 minutes, he added.

Except for ballots from military personnel and abroad voters, absentee ballots must be submitted by the counties by 7 p.m. local time. After Election Day, there shouldn't be many uncounted ballots, according to Mr. Ard, who added that the state will keep track of those totals.

On election day in Florida, almost 98 percent of the votes are generally counted, according to Stephen Ohlemacher, The Associated Press' election decision editor.

The A.P. announced that as of 1:02 a.m. Eastern time the morning following the election, every Florida precinct had reported the results of the general election for 2020.

At 9 p.m. Eastern time, New York's in-person voting closes statewide. A new state rule mandates that counties begin processing mail-in ballots four days after receiving them and may start tabulating the results an hour before polls shut, according to Mr. Ohlemacher. The counting of mail-in votes used to begin a week after the election, he claimed.

The alteration already made a significant difference during the New York primary elections on June 28. There were intraparty races for governor and the State Assembly, the lower house of the Legislature. After election day, just 1% of the votes were still unaccounted for. According to The AP, it was 23 percent in the general election of 2020.

The A.P. may take longer to determine who wins close contests since New York continues to lag behind other states in releasing statistics regarding the amount of mail-in votes cast, according to Mr. Ohlemacher.

Around 10 p.m. Eastern time, counties will begin posting results in real time on the state's election results website, according to Jennifer Wilson, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections.