Could a brief technical glitch in absentee ballot processing ultimately decide the winner of this unexpectedly tight race?

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Probably not by itself, though in a very close race it could affect when the winner is known. Michigan officials said the problem was a brief outage in the state’s Qualified Voter File that slowed clerks’ processing of absentee ballots and some same-day registrations. According to the Michigan Department of State, it did not affect in-person voting, was resolved within about an hour, and was not expected to significantly delay results. That matters because the issue appears administrative rather than a loss of votes. Clerks were still able to process ballots, just more slowly. In Michigan, unofficial results can already come in unevenly because more than 1,500 local clerks report separately and many absentee ballots are processed late on Election Day. With more than 1 million absentee ballots cast, even a short slowdown could make early returns look more volatile than they otherwise would. If the margin ends up extremely small, any delay in absentee-heavy counties such as Wayne or Oakland could shape the election-night narrative and temporarily obscure who is ahead. But deciding the winner is a different question. There is no indication so far that ballots were rejected, lost, or made invalid because of the glitch. So the more realistic risk is not that the outage changes votes, but that it delays full reporting in a race close enough that the final outcome remains uncertain until more absentee ballots are counted and canvassed.

Progressives Post Mixed Primary Night as El-Sayed Leads Narrowly and Bush Loses

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Progressives Post Mixed Primary Night as El-Sayed Leads Narrowly and Bush Loses

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