# Election Canvass The **canvass** is the official accounting of an election. A county board (or the equivalent local body) reconciles ballots cast against ballots counted. It adds in late-arriving mail ballots, settles [[Provisional Ballot]] decisions, counts cured ballots and corrects the unofficial election-night tally. The result is the first set of returns that has legal force, and it feeds straight into [[Election Certification]]. The election-night number has no legal status. The canvass is where a result becomes a return. ## A duty, not a choice The point that matters most in the current fight: **canvassing is ministerial.** Officials certify the count they have. They are not empowered to second-guess it. Courts and constitutions have said so repeatedly: - **Michigan** put it in its constitution in 2022 (Article II, §7, added by Proposal 2). Certification is the board's "ministerial, clerical, nondiscretionary duty." - **Arizona**: a judge ruled the duty "nondiscretionary" on December 1, 2022. The Court of Appeals later called the canvass "strictly an administrative action" in which supervisors "have no discretion." - **Georgia**: Judge Robert McBurney held in October 2024 that county superintendents have a "mandatory fixed obligation to certify." The Court of Appeals affirmed in July 2025. ## Timing Deadlines vary widely (NCSL): - **County deadlines** run from the day after the election in Alaska to four weeks or more in a few states. Fifteen states give counties one week and 21 give them two. - **The state canvass** follows, from the Friday after the election in Oklahoma to the second Tuesday in December in Missouri. The sequence is always the same: precincts report to the county, the county certifies to the state, and the state board or secretary of state certifies the result (see [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]]). ## Refusals to certify Since 2020 the canvass has become a pressure point for [[Election Denialism]]. Local officials vote not to certify, and courts order them to. Brennan Center counted at least 17 attempts to interfere with certification in the 2024 cycle. | Where | When | What happened | |---|---|---| | Wayne County, Mich. | Nov 2020 | Two Republican canvassers voted no, then certified, then signed affidavits trying to take it back. The state said there was no legal way to do that. The state board certified 3–0 with one abstention. Member Aaron Van Langevelde: "We have no authority to… delay or block certification." | | Otero County, N.M. | June 2022 primary | The commission refused. The state Supreme Court ordered certification, and it passed 2–1. Commissioner Couy Griffin, a January 6 participant, was removed from office that September under the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause ([[Fourteenth Amendment]]). | | Cochise County, Ariz. | Nov 2022 | The supervisors missed the deadline and certified only under court order. Supervisor Peggy Judd pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in October 2024. Tom Crosby faces felony charges; the Arizona Supreme Court rejected his immunity appeal in January 2026. His trial outcome is not confirmed here. | | Georgia State Election Board | Aug 2024 | It adopted a rule letting county boards make a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck it down, with three other rules, on June 10, 2025. | | Washoe County, Nev. | July 2024 | The commission voted 3–2 against certifying primary recounts, then reversed a week later under legal pressure. | ## 2026 - **Shasta County, Calif.** After the June 2026 primary, activists pressed the elected registrar, Clint Curtis, not to certify. He certified, then called some ballots suspect. A federal grand jury in Sacramento then subpoenaed him to produce about 55,000 June ballots by September 24, 2026. - **The FBI and Fulton County.** On January 28, 2026, the FBI seized Fulton County's 2020 ballots and records under a search warrant, and a judge let the Justice Department keep them in May. Atlanta News First reported in July that about 260 FBI analysts were assigned to the review. The vault tracks this because it moves the post-election fight from county boards to federal law enforcement. No 2026 primary certification refusal was confirmed as of this writing. ## See Also - [[Election Certification]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]] · [[How a Ballot Is Counted]] - [[Ballot Reconciliation]] · [[Ballot Adjudication]] · [[Chain of Custody]] · [[Provisional Ballot]] - [[Recount]] · [[Risk-Limiting Audit]] - [[Election Denialism]] · [[Election Ballot Chain of Custody Flow]] ## See also - [[State Canvass Deadline Crosswalk]] — the fifty-state deadline map for both canvass stages: who may move a deadline, and what the law provides when one passes unmet