Indiana voters decide federal and state races in Tuesday's midterm election

Early and absentee ballots likely to appear in first Indiana results

Indiana voters go to the polls on Tuesday to elect leaders for federal, state and other offices. Polls close at 6 p.m. local time, which is 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Eastern.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in races for U.S. House, secretary of state, statewide ballot measures, state Senate, state House, state auditor and state treasurer. Its Decision Team outlined the key facts and data points it will monitor as the votes are tallied.

The AP’s Indiana primer, written by Camille Baker, answers the practical questions that shape an election night: when polls close, how much of the vote is cast before Election Day, how quickly counties expect to post results, and what standard the news service applies before declaring a winner.

Turnout in the last midterm offers one benchmark. About 1.9 million votes were cast in Indiana’s 2022 race for the U.S. Senate, according to the AP.

Early voting accounted for a sizable share of that total: about 36% of all ballots cast in the 2022 Senate race were cast early or by absentee ballot, the AP said. The latest advance vote totals for Indiana are available in the AP’s advance vote tracker.

Absentee ballots in Indiana may be processed once they are received, and counting may begin before the polls close on Election Day — a rule the AP notes leads to relatively quick counting of absentee ballots.

Election officials from more than three-quarters of Indiana’s 92 counties are expected to include all or nearly all the results of absentee and early voting in their first vote update of the night, according to the AP.

The 2024 general election offers a guide to pacing. The first results were reported starting at 6:05 p.m. ET on Nov. 5 — five minutes after polls closed in the Eastern time zone — and Indiana reached 50% of votes reporting at 8:30 p.m. ET, the AP said. The state reached 90% of votes reporting at 11:49 p.m. ET.

The AP does not make projections. It declares a winner only when it determines there is “no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap,” according to the explainer. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory, while making clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explaining why.

Indiana has no automatic recounts. A candidate may request and pay for a recount regardless of the vote margin, and the costs may be partly or fully refunded depending on the results, the AP reported. The news service may declare a winner in a race subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.