# State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] produces a number. [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] moves it out of the room as an unofficial tally. [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] checks it against the paper. [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] is the one instrument that can change it. [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] turns it into a certificate. This map is the **clock** that runs underneath all of them: the dates by which the county canvass and the state canvass must happen, who may move those dates, and what occurs when one passes with nothing done. The map was commissioned because the date of certification turned out to be a hidden variable in a map built five days earlier. [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] found that in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia the window to file an election contest runs **from certification** rather than from election day — so in those states the canvass deadline silently sets the contest deadline, and nothing in the contest statutes says so. Four columns were planned: the county deadline, the state deadline, who may extend either, and what happens when a deadline is missed. Three of those are published in national tables and reconcile cleanly. **The fourth is not written down.** [[National Conference of State Legislatures]] maintains the canvass-deadline tables the vault already cites, and its page describes no penalty and no consequence for a missed deadline anywhere in the fifty states — only extension and adjournment provisions. That absence is the finding, and Part E is what fills the hole: the remedy that actually works is a **writ of mandamus**, an extraordinary order borrowed from general civil practice and sitting in no state's election code; the consequence that actually deters is a **felony statute in the criminal chapter**; and the only express statutory consequence found inside a canvass chapter is **who pays for the overnight envelope**. The second finding is that a large minority of state "deadlines" are not deadlines. **Only 31 of the 50 states set an unconditional date by which the state-level canvass must be finished.** The other nineteen name a date for the board to *convene* and no date to conclude, make the deadline contingent on no contest being filed, or state no completion deadline at all — and the state whose recount-waiver window dominated the 2026-10-11 build, Pennsylvania, is in the last group. > [!note] How to read this crosswalk > `■` marks a part · `▸` marks a column, lane or design · `⏱` marks a deadline · `↗` marks who may move it · `⊘` marks **a duty stated with no remedy attached** · `⚖` marks a remedy that comes from outside the election code · `✱` marks the structural point of a block · `⚑` marks something that **changed for November 2026** · `◈` marks **a count derived here from a published table rather than reported anywhere**, explained in the Notes · `[bracketed]` notes are dated caveats. "Day N" means N days after election day unless noted. Everything inside the fence is a **statute, a rule, a date or a state** — this map is built to stay true as people rotate, and **no current officeholder is named anywhere on it**. Statute names inside the fence are plain text; the linked versions are in the Notes and See also. ``` STATE CANVASS DEADLINE CROSSWALK — four columns, three of them published, and the one that decides everything written in almost no state's code (as of 12 October 2026) │ Legend: ▸ column / lane ⏱ deadline ↗ who may move it ⊘ duty with no remedy │ ⚖ remedy from outside the election code ✱ structural point │ ⚑ changed for Nov 2026 ◈ count derived here, see Notes │ ■ PART A — WHAT A CANVASS IS, AND WHY THERE ARE TWO OF THEM │ ├─ A canvass is not a count. The count happens on election night and after; the canvass │ is the ACCOUNTING for that count — precinct returns reconciled, provisional and cured │ ballots resolved, the totals aggregated and declared official. │ ├─◆ STAGE 1 · THE COUNTY (or municipal) CANVASS │ ├─ Who: a county board of canvassers — in many states the county commission or board │ │ of supervisors sitting in a different capacity, with the clerk as secretary │ ├─ Output: the ABSTRACT OF VOTES, the county's official return │ └─ ✱ The board is almost always a body of general-purpose elected officials doing a │ MINISTERIAL task. That mismatch is the whole of Part E. │ └─◆ STAGE 2 · THE STATE CANVASS ├─ Who: a board of state canvassers, a state board of elections, or the chief election │ officer — composition varies more than any other element here ├─ Input: every county abstract. The state cannot finish until the last county reports, │ which is why most extension instruments in Part D are triggered by a MISSING │ RETURN rather than by a difficulty at the state level └─ Output: the official statewide result, and the certificate downstream law runs on ■ PART B — THE COUNTY CANVASS DEADLINE, FIFTY STATES, SORTED BY TIME ALLOWED │ ├─◆ 24–48 HOURS — the canvass begins before the dust settles │ ├─ Alaska .......... day 1 (AS 15.15.370) │ ├─ Delaware ....... 10 a.m. on day 2 — and NO completion deadline specified │ │ (Const. art. V § 6; 15 Del. Code § 5701) │ ├─ Connecticut .... 48 hours after polls close (§ 9-314) │ ├─ Vermont ........ 48 hours after polls close (§ 2588) │ ├─ New Hampshire .. 8 a.m. on the day after, unless the Secretary sets another date │ └─ Maine .......... 5 p.m. on the second business day (tit. 21A § 711) │ ├─◆ DAYS 4–10 — the modal band │ ├─ Louisiana ...... noon on day 6 (§ 18:574(3)) ├─ South Dakota .. within 6 days │ ├─ Michigan ....... day 7 presidential / day 14 other ├─ Minnesota .... day 8 │ ├─ Arkansas ....... day 8 presidential electors ├─ Missouri ..... day 8 pres. │ ├─ Idaho .......... day 9 ⚑ (§ 34-1205 — was ten) ├─ Nevada ....... on or before 10 │ ├─ North Carolina . 11 a.m. on day 10 (§ 163-182.5(b))├─ Mississippi .. day 10 │ ├─ New Mexico ..... within 10 days — 13 days for counties over 150,000 (§ 1-13-13) │ └─ Virginia ....... within 10 days (§ 24.2-671) │ ├─◆ DAYS 11–21 │ ├─ Florida ........ noon on day 13 (§ 102.112(2)) ├─ Iowa ......... within 13 days │ ├─ Texas .......... not later than day 14 (§ 67.003) ├─ Utah ......... day 14 │ ├─ Wisconsin ...... no later than day 14 (§ 7.60) ⚑ ├─ Montana ...... within 14 days │ ├─ Massachusetts .. within 15 days ├─ New Jersey ... day 15 │ ├─ Ohio ........... no later than day 21 (§ 3505.32) ├─ Illinois ..... within 21 days │ └─ Washington ..... not later than day 21 (§ 29A.60.190) │ ├─◆ DAYS 22–30 — longer than most states' ENTIRE two-stage process │ ├─ Colorado ....... no later than day 22 (§ 1-10-102) — but see Part D, lane 5 │ ├─ New York ....... within 25 days (§ 9-214) │ ├─ Oregon ........ no later than day 27 (§ 254.545(3)) │ ├─ California .... day 28 presidential electors / day 30 other offices (§ 15372) │ └─ West Virginia . day 30 (§ 3-6-11) │ ✱ West Virginia's COUNTY deadline falls after the point at which Florida has │ finished its county canvass, its state canvass and issued the official result — │ the whole Florida sequence closes at 9 a.m. on day 14. │ └─◆ SET BY WEEKDAY RATHER THAN BY COUNT — a date that moves with the calendar ├─ Alabama ........ second Friday after ├─ Arizona ...... by 3rd Thursday after ├─ Georgia ........ 5 p.m. Monday after ├─ Indiana ...... noon 2nd Monday after ├─ Kansas ......... second Tuesday after ├─ Kentucky ..... noon Tuesday after ├─ Maryland ....... second Friday after ├─ Missouri ..... 2nd Tuesday (non-pres.) ├─ Nebraska ....... third Monday after ⚑ ├─ Oklahoma ..... 5 p.m. Friday after ├─ South Carolina . noon Saturday after ├─ Tennessee .... 3rd Monday after ├─ Wyoming ........ first Friday after └─ Pennsylvania . final 5 days after the └─ Hawaii ......... within 5 days unofficial return, absent a recount petition (25 Pa. Stat. § 3154(f)) ■ PART C — THE STATE CANVASS DEADLINE, AND THE FINDING THAT NINETEEN AREN'T DEADLINES │ ├─◆ LANE 1 · UNCONDITIONAL COMPLETION DATE — 31 states ◈ │ │ A date by which the state-level canvass must be DONE. │ ├─ Day 14 Florida · Day 15/Dec Missouri · Day 16 Minnesota · Day 17–18 Georgia │ ├─ Day 20 Michigan · Day 21 Idaho · Day 22 Alabama · Day 27 Colorado, Montana, Iowa │ ├─ Day 30 Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington · Day 31 Illinois · Day 33 Texas │ ├─ Day 38 California · Within 20 Maine · Within 30 Maryland, Arkansas │ ├─ 3rd Monday Kentucky · 3rd Tuesday New Mexico · 3rd Monday+ Arizona (postponable) │ ├─ 4th Monday Nebraska, Utah · 4th Tuesday Nevada · Last Tuesday Nov. Indiana │ ├─ Dec. 1 Wisconsin · 1st Mon. after 1st Wed. Dec. New York · 3rd Mon. Dec.+ Virginia │ └─ Ohio: 10 days after the county abstracts arrive · North Carolina: 10 days after the │ Tuesday three weeks out — ✱ both measured from an EVENT, not from election day │ ├─◆ LANE 2 · CONVENE-ONLY — a date to START and none to FINISH — 4 states │ ├─ Alaska ......... begins no later than day 16 and "continues until completed" │ ├─ Kansas ......... "must begin by Dec. 1" (§ 25-3206(b)) — a start, not a finish │ ├─ Vermont ........ board convenes 10 a.m. one week after; no completion deadline │ └─ Wyoming ........ convenes no later than the 2nd Wednesday; no completion deadline │ ⊘ The duty to canvass is stated. The date it must end is not. │ ├─◆ LANE 3 · CONVENE + A STATUTORY ADJOURNMENT CAP — 4 states │ │ An outer bound exists, but by arithmetic rather than by a stated deadline. │ ├─ North Dakota ... meets by day 17, may adjourn up to 3 days (§§ 16.1-15-35, -38) │ ├─ South Carolina . convenes within 10 days, may adjourn 5 days presidential / │ │ 15 days other offices (§§ 7-17-220, 7-17-230) │ ├─ South Dakota ... convenes within 7 days, may adjourn up to 10 (§ 12-20-47) │ └─ Virginia ....... meets 3rd Monday in December, may adjourn up to 3 (§ 24.2-679) │ ├─◆ LANE 4 · CONTINGENT ON NO CONTEST OR RECOUNT BEING FILED — 5 states │ │ ✱ The deadline exists only in the uncontested case — so the closer the race, the │ │ less of a deadline there is, which inverts what a deadline is for. │ ├─ Connecticut .... day 30 if no contest; after the 3rd Monday in Dec. if contested │ ├─ Hawaii ......... after the time to bring a contest expires (§§ 11-155, 11-174.5) │ ├─ Louisiana ...... on or before day 14 IF no contest is filed (§ 18:574) │ ├─ New Hampshire .. after the recount filing period passes (§§ 659:84, 660:1) │ └─ Oklahoma ....... 5 p.m. Friday after, IF no contest is filed (26 Okla. Stat. 8-108) │ [Iowa sits in lane 1 but carries the same feature: § 50.48(6) delays the state │ canvass for any office subject to a recount.] │ └─◆ LANE 5 · NO STATE COMPLETION DEADLINE SPECIFIED AT ALL — 6 states ├─ Delaware ....... not specified — and its county stage names only a start time ├─ Massachusetts .. presidential only (declared day 10 after returns, certified 14 │ days later if no contest); OTHER OFFICES not specified ├─ Pennsylvania ... not specified ├─ Rhode Island ... not specified; completed once all returns reach the Secretary ├─ Tennessee ...... not specified └─ West Virginia .. not specified — the state with the LATEST county deadline (day 30) ✱ Pennsylvania is in this lane. The 2026-10-11 build turned on a Pennsylvania recount-waiver window that expires at noon on the 2nd Wednesday (25 P.S. § 3154(h)) — a deadline measured to the hour, sitting in a state with no stated deadline for finishing the canvass it governs. ■ PART D — WHO MAY MOVE THE DATE: FIVE INSTRUMENTS, AND ONE THAT ISN'T A STATUTE │ ├─◆ 1 · BOARD ADJOURNMENT WITH A CAP — the board moves its own date, up to a limit │ └─ North Dakota 3 days · South Carolina 5/15 · South Dakota 10 · Virginia 3 │ ↗ Held by the canvassing board itself. No outside approval. │ ├─◆ 2 · AUTOMATIC DAY-TO-DAY POSTPONEMENT UNTIL THE RETURNS ARRIVE │ ├─ Montana ........ if returns are incomplete the board postpones "day to day" until │ │ they are received (§ 13-15-401) │ └─ Maryland ....... second Friday after, or within 48 hours of completion if later │ ↗ Held by nobody — it operates by law. ✱ The cleanest design on this map: the │ deadline cannot be missed, because a missing return moves it automatically. │ ├─◆ 3 · CHIEF ELECTION OFFICER DISCRETION │ ├─ New Hampshire .. the Secretary of State may order a different county canvass date │ │ (§ 659:75) │ └─ Arizona ........ the state canvass may be POSTPONED UP TO 30 DAYS until all county │ results are received (§ 16-648) │ ✱ Arizona's 30-day postponement is the instrument that made the 2022 Cochise │ County standoff survivable — one county's refusal could not run the state out │ of time. See Part E. │ ├─◆ 4 · CONTEST OR RECOUNT CONTINGENCY — the filing moves the date │ └─ Connecticut · Hawaii · Iowa · Louisiana · New Hampshire · Oklahoma · Massachusetts │ ↗ Held by whichever party files. ✱ The only lane where a PRIVATE actor moves a │ public deadline, which is the same structure the recount-waiver statutes use — │ see How a Conceded Election Is Finalized. │ └─◆ 5 · AN AUTHORIZATION GATE — Colorado, and it is a RULE rather than a statute ├─ ⏱ Statute: the county canvass is due no later than day 22 (§ 1-10-102); the state │ canvass no later than day 27 (§ 1-10-103) ├─ ↗ Election Rule 10.4 (8 CCR 1505-1): "The Secretary of State may extend the canvass │ deadline for one or more counties" "in order to complete the risk-limiting │ audit in accordance with Rule 25.2" └─ ✱ AND THE SENTENCE THAT INVERTS THE WHOLE COLUMN: "No canvass board may certify official results until authorized to do so by the Secretary of State." In Colorado the day-22 date is not a deadline a county races toward — it is the far edge of a window the STATE opens. The county cannot be late without permission and cannot be early without permission either. The instrument that does this is an administrative rule, not the Election Code, so it is changeable without a legislature. ■ PART E — WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE DEADLINE PASSES UNMET: THE COLUMN NO TABLE CARRIES │ ├─◆ THE BASELINE · NOTHING STATED — the modal case ⊘ │ └─ NCSL's canvass-deadline page describes NO penalty and NO consequence for a missed │ deadline in any of the fifty states, beyond the extension and adjournment │ provisions in Part D. ✱ A canvass deadline is, in most states, a duty with a date │ and no sanction — which is why the question has to be answered from case law and │ from chapters of the code that are not about elections. │ ├─◆ REMEDY 1 · THE WRIT OF MANDAMUS — the universal answer, and it is not election law ⚖ │ ├─ An extraordinary order compelling an official to perform a non-discretionary duty. │ │ It works here precisely BECAUSE the canvass is ministerial: there is no judgment │ │ for a court to defer to. │ ├─ New Mexico, June 2022 — Otero County's commission refused to certify the primary. │ │ The Secretary of State went to court to compel it; the commission then certified │ │ 2–1 at an emergency meeting. ✱ The statute relied on dates to at least 1953 and, │ │ by contemporaneous reporting, had never been used before that month. │ └─ ✱ The enforcement mechanism of American canvass law is a writ older than the │ statutes it enforces, invented for an unrelated purpose, and essentially unused │ until 2022. │ ├─◆ REMEDY 2 · CRIMINAL LIABILITY — Arizona, and it sits in the criminal chapter ⚖ │ ├─ 2022: two of the three Cochise County supervisors voted against canvassing the │ │ midterm results by the November 28 deadline, after the County Attorney's Office │ │ advised that the canvass was a non-discretionary duty. │ ├─ The Secretary of State sued; the court ordered the board to reconvene; it certified │ │ 2–0, one supervisor absent. │ ├─ A state grand jury indicted both on 27 November 2023 on two class 5 felonies — │ │ CONSPIRACY and INTERFERENCE WITH AN ELECTION OFFICER. │ ├─ One pleaded guilty on 21 October 2024 and received probation and a fine. │ └─ ✱ Note what the charges are NOT: there is no offense of "missing the canvass │ deadline." The conduct was reached by general conspiracy and interference │ statutes, which is the same borrowing pattern as remedy 1. │ ├─◆ REMEDY 3 · THE COST OF THE COURIER — Nebraska, the one express statutory consequence │ │ ⚑ and the only column-4 legislation passed anywhere in 2026 │ ├─ If a county's abstract has not reached the Secretary of State by the third Monday │ │ after the election (§ 32-1034), the Secretary MAY, under § 32-1035: │ │ ├─ require the abstract sent by overnight delivery with a tracking number, or by │ │ │ next-day hand delivery, AT THE COUNTY'S EXPENSE; or │ │ └─ send a messenger to the county clerk, AT THE COUNTY'S EXPENSE │ ├─ And if the delay was the official's own fault or neglect, "he or she shall be │ │ responsible to the county for the cost of the messenger." │ └─ ✱ This is the complete set of express consequences found in the canvass chapters │ examined: a shipping invoice, and in the worst case the clerk pays for it │ personally. Set beside remedy 2, the fifty-state spread on what a missed canvass │ deadline costs runs from TWO CLASS 5 FELONIES to ONE OVERNIGHT ENVELOPE. │ └─◆ WHAT NO STATE APPEARS TO HAVE — the holes, named rather than filled ├─ No self-executing fallback: nowhere examined does a missed county deadline cause │ the state to canvass the county's returns ITSELF, or cause the unofficial return to │ become official by operation of law. The duty does not transfer. ├─ No removal trigger tied to the deadline as such. └─ ⊘ So in the modal state the answer to "what if they just don't" is: somebody must go to court, and a court must be willing to act inside the remaining calendar. ■ PART F — THE FEDERAL CLOCK OVER THE TOP, AND WHY IT DOES NOT REACH NOVEMBER 2026 │ ├─◆ IN A PRESIDENTIAL YEAR — the Electoral Count Reform Act supplies the hard outer bound │ ├─ ⏱ The state executive must issue the CERTIFICATE OF ASCERTAINMENT six days before │ │ the meeting of electors. │ ├─ ✱ That date works BACKWARD through every lane in Part C: a state's canvass, its │ │ recounts and its contests must all finish inside it, whatever its own code says │ │ — including the states in lanes 2, 4 and 5 that set no completion date at all. │ ├─ ⚖ If the certificate is not issued or names the wrong winner: an action for an │ │ order compelling issuance, heard by a THREE-JUDGE DISTRICT COURT (two circuit │ │ judges and one district judge), with Supreme Court review on expedited │ │ certiorari. The court has until the day before the electors meet. A certificate │ │ issued under that order binds Congress in the count. │ └─ ✱ So the one place American law DOES answer the missed-deadline question in advance │ is the only place where the answer could not be left to the states. │ └─◆ IN A MIDTERM — there is no federal backstop at all ├─ No certificate of ascertainment · no electors · no ECRA clock. ├─ U.S. Const. art. I § 5 cl. 1 makes each chamber the judge of its own members' │ elections, and the Federal Contested Elections Act's 30-day notice clock runs from │ the state's DECLARATION of the result — whenever that comes. A state that never │ finishes its canvass does not trip a federal deadline; it postpones the start of │ the federal one. └─ ✱ THE MIDTERM PAYOFF: on 3 November 2026 the canvass runs on state deadlines alone. In 19 states (Part C lanes 2–5) there is no unconditional date by which the state canvass must be done, and in the modal state no stated consequence if it is not. The downstream map is How a Contested House Seat Is Decided (queued). ■ PART G — WHAT CHANGED FOR NOVEMBER 2026 ⚑ │ ├─◆ IDAHO · county canvass 10 days → NINE │ ├─ § 34-1205 now reads: the board "shall meet within nine (9) days after an election." │ ├─ Attributed by Ballotpedia to H 873, enacted as Session Law ch. 286, signed │ │ 2 April 2026, effective 1 July 2026; passed House 69–0–1 and Senate 34–0–1. │ └─ [unconfirmed] WHICH session law made it nine. The statute page's amendment history │ runs 1970–2025 (most recently 2025 ch. 113 § 18) and carries no 2026 citation, and │ the site notes statutes are updated 1 July following each session. The OPERATIVE │ TEXT is nine days; the attribution is not independently verified here. │ ├─◆ NEBRASKA · LB 1075, approved by the Governor 15 April 2026 — and NOT what it looked like │ ├─ Reported as creating a submission deadline where none existed. What the bill text │ │ shows is narrower and more interesting: │ ├─ § 32-1034 — the abstract must reach the Secretary by the third Monday after the │ │ election; if sent electronically or by fax, the original by the fourth Wednesday. │ ├─ § 32-1035 — the late-abstract remedies are re-pinned FROM "the deadlines specified │ │ in section 32-1034" TO the third Monday itself. │ └─ ✱ So the 2026 change is not a new deadline. It is the ENFORCEMENT TRIGGER being │ fastened to a specific date — the only state legislating in column 4 this year. │ └─◆ WISCONSIN · 2025 Wisconsin Act 214 — real, and it does not apply to this election ├─ Replaces the flat 1 December state canvass for PRESIDENTIAL elections: county │ canvass before noon on the Saturday after, state canvass within 21 days. ├─ Purpose: conformity with the federal Electoral Count Reform Act clock in Part F. ├─ Applicability: the 2028 presidential election. └─ ✱ The only 2026 canvass legislation aimed at the federal deadline is the only one that does nothing for 3 November 2026. Wisconsin's midterm deadlines are unchanged: county day 14 (§ 7.60), state 1 December (§ 7.70). [Act text not independently retrieved — see Notes 8.] ``` ## Notes 1. **The source of the fifty-state rows, and what it is not.** The county and state deadline columns are reconciled from the [[National Conference of State Legislatures]] canvass-deadline tables, which the vault already cites on [[Election Canvass]], supplemented by the statutory citations NCSL carries. NCSL states that its page covers **general elections only**, is general information rather than legal advice, and directs readers to local election officials for exact dates. Two of its entries are garbled in the source (Minnesota's state deadline and Arkansas's non-presidential county entry), and both are rendered here as the clean reading of the surrounding text. The [[National Association of Secretaries of State]] maintains a parallel canvass-and-recount summary that was not used as a second source for every row; where the two differ, NASS should be checked before any single row is relied on in print. 2. **◈ The 31-of-50 count is derived here, not reported.** No published table carries a "does this state set an unconditional completion deadline" column — that classification is the work this map does, applying the lane definitions in Part C to NCSL's own entries. A different reader could move three or four states by drawing the line differently: whether a convene-plus-adjournment-cap state (lane 3) counts as having a deadline, since the cap does produce an outer bound; whether Arizona's 30-day-postponable date counts as unconditional; and whether Iowa belongs in lane 1 or lane 4, since it has a fixed date that a recount suspends. The count is **31** under the definitions stated. It is reproducible but it is not a fact anyone else has published, and it should be cited as a derivation. 3. **The fifty-state census nobody has run.** As with four companion maps in this series, the largest unmeasured cell here is a fifty-state survey that no tracker publishes. This map's is **column 4**: there appears to be no national table of what a state's law provides when a canvass deadline passes unmet. Compiling it would mean reading fifty canvass chapters for an express consequence, then fifty criminal codes for the offense that actually reaches the conduct, then the mandamus practice in each. The strong prior from this map is that a first pass would return almost nothing: Nebraska's courier provision was found only by reading the bill text, and it is in the canvass chapter. 4. **Why the ministerial character of the canvass is load-bearing rather than decorative.** Mandamus lies only against a non-discretionary duty, so the same quality that makes the canvass unremarkable is what makes it enforceable. [[How a Conceded Election Is Finalized]] found Michigan putting "ministerial, clerical, nondiscretionary" into its constitution at art. II § 7(3) in 2022; that amendment is best read as hardening the mandamus route rather than as changing what the duty was. A state that gave its canvassing boards genuine discretion would, by the same mechanism, make the deadline substantially unenforceable. 5. **Cochise County: what it is and is not evidence of.** It is evidence that a county board can refuse, that a court will order the canvass, that the order will be obeyed, and that a prosecutor may charge the refusal afterward under general statutes. It is **not** evidence that the deadline itself carries a sanction — the charges were conspiracy and interference with an election officer, not a canvass-deadline offense — and it is not evidence about what happens when a court order is defied, because it was not. The relevant Arizona structural fact is in Part D: the § 16-648 thirty-day postponement meant one county's refusal could not run the state out of calendar. A state in lane 2 or 5 with no postponement instrument and a tighter downstream clock would have had a materially worse version of the same standoff. One supervisor's case resolved in a plea; the other's disposition is not established here and should be checked before citation. 6. **Otero County is sourced to contemporaneous reporting, not to a court record.** The June 2022 sequence — refusal, the Secretary of State's resort to court, certification 2–1 at an emergency meeting — is well reported, but the accounts consulted differ on the procedural detail, including which court issued what and whether the commission acted before or after an order. One account describes a New Mexico Supreme Court writ; another describes the Secretary's filing and then the commission's own vote without naming a court order. The **pattern** is solid and the **procedural posture is [unconfirmed]**. The statute cited in reporting is § 1-13-12. 7. **Colorado's gate is a rule, and that is the point of flagging it.** Rule 10.4 does the work that elsewhere requires a statute, which means in Colorado the relationship between the audit and the certificate can be changed by rulemaking. The [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] put Colorado in the audit-before-certification-and-binding quadrant; this map supplies the mechanism by which that sequencing is actually enforced — not the statutory day-22 deadline, but the authorization sentence. Verified from the Secretary of State's current rule publication; the statutory deadlines are §§ 1-10-102 and 1-10-103. 8. **Wisconsin Act 214's text was not retrieved.** The Act's official PDF could not be fetched (the legislature's site refuses automated retrieval), so Part G's Wisconsin block rests on Ballotpedia's description plus the act number from search results, and the § 7.60 / § 7.70 midterm deadlines from NCSL. The ECRA-conformity purpose and the 2028 applicability are as reported. Before this block is cited anywhere load-bearing, read the Act. 9. **Idaho's attribution problem is worth keeping rather than tidying.** The operative statutory text is nine days and that is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether H 873 made it nine or whether the 2025 act did and H 873 changed something adjacent, and the published amendment history does not settle it. The honest form is the one on the map: assert the text, flag the attribution. ⚑ A reader who needs the provenance should read H 873's Statement of Purpose, which was not retrieved. 10. **What this map deliberately excludes.** Recount deadlines and their margin triggers are [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]]; the contest filing windows the canvass date silently sets are [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]]; the audit timing that Colorado's gate exists to protect is [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]]; the certificate itself and what makes it hard to undo is [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]]. This map is only the clock. It also excludes the District of Columbia and the territories, which NCSL's canvass table does not cover in the form used here — a gap, not a judgment. 11. **No officeholder is named on this map, by design.** A deadline crosswalk is safe ground for a page that has to survive an election: the content is dates, statutes and rules, and the only people in it are offices. The two 2022 episodes in Part E are described by role for the same reason. [[2026 Midterms Hub]] and [[Battleground Election Officials Hub]] carry the names. 12. **Questions left open.** Whether any state has ever let a state canvass deadline pass with no court involvement and no consequence — the lane-2 and lane-5 states are where that would be invisible, because nothing would have been violated. Whether the nineteen lane-2-through-5 states cluster on any other variable, or whether the absence of a completion deadline is simply old drafting left alone. Whether Nebraska's courier provision has ever been used. And the one that matters most for 3 November 2026: in the states where the contest window runs from certification, what a candidate's remedy is if certification is simply slow — the contest clock has not started, so there is nothing yet to be late for, and the map cannot say whether any court has treated that as a reason to compel the canvass. ## See also - [[State Election Contest Crosswalk]] — the map that commissioned this one; its finding that the contest window runs from certification in four states is what makes the canvass date load-bearing - [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] — the certificate every deadline here is measured against - [[Post-Election Audit Crosswalk]] — the procedure Colorado's authorization gate exists to protect, and the four timing quadrants this map supplies the clock for - [[Recount Trigger Crosswalk]] — the instrument that can change a certified number, and the filings that move the deadlines in Part C lane 4 - [[How a Conceded Election Is Finalized]] — the recount-waiver windows that sit inside these deadlines, and the Pennsylvania § 3154(h) clock named in Part C lane 5 - How a Contested House Seat Is Decided *(queued, not yet built — left as plain text rather than stubbed, so the build that creates it does not collide with a placeholder)* — the downstream of Part F's midterm lane, where art. I § 5 takes over from state law - [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] — the count the canvass accounts for - [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] — the unofficial return that the canvass makes official - [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] — what must hold together across the days this map counts - [[Ballot Marking Validity Crosswalk]] — the vote definition the canvass applies when it resolves a contested ballot - [[State Ballot Position Crosswalk]] · [[How a Tie Vote Is Broken]] · [[How a Voter Is Removed From the Rolls]] — the rest of the fronted election-mechanics block - [[Election Canvass]] — the term page, and the vault's existing citation of the NCSL tables - [[Election Certification]] · [[Writ of Mandamus]] — the duty, and the remedy Part E says comes from outside the election code - [[Electoral Count Reform Act]] · [[Certificate of Ascertainment]] · [[Electoral Count Act]] — the federal clock in Part F and the statute it replaced - [[Electoral College Process Flow]] — where the Part F presidential lane goes next - [[Risk-Limiting Audit]] — the audit Colorado's Rule 10.4 extension exists for - [[Election Contest]] · [[Recount]] · [[Provisional Ballot]] — the filings and ballots that move or occupy these windows - [[Help America Vote Act]] — the federal floor that regulates the machine and says nothing about when the canvass must end - [[Election Assistance Commission]] — the federal body with no role in any deadline on this map - [[National Conference of State Legislatures]] — the source of the fifty-state rows, and the subject of Notes 1 and 2 - [[National Association of Secretaries of State]] — the parallel summary that should be the second source for any row cited in print - [[Ballotpedia]] — the source for the three 2026 changes in Part G - [[Verified Voting]] · [[Brennan Center for Justice]] — the trackers that cover the audit and certification layers around this clock - [[Election Denialism]] — the movement whose 2022 refusals produced the only worked examples Part E has - [[State Election Administration Tree]] — the offices that run every stage above - [[Elections Clause]] — why fifty different clocks exist at all - [[2026 Midterms Hub]] — the cycle this map is built for - [[Foundations Hub]] — parent hub for the map series