Election watchers probably won’t know the results of Colorado’s Super Tuesday presidential primary for days, and the full returns might not be available for weeks.

The major parties’ presidential primaries determine two things – which candidates get the most votes, and how many delegates they receive.

The first set of results, designating a winner and the other candidates’ relative finishes, is good for bragging rights and headlines but not much else, since it’s the accumulation of delegates to the parties’ national conventions that will ultimately yield nominees.

While some results will likely be apparent Tuesday night, within hours of the polls closing at 7 p.m., the all-important delegate allocation in the Democratic primary might not be finalized until later this month, state and party officials say.

The delays aren’t cause for alarm, but are instead a sign the system is working, election officials say.

“We want to emphasize, as more and more results come in on election night and the days following, that is standard operating procedure in Colorado and does not mean there’s anything wrong,” said Dwight Shellman, manager of county election services for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

That’s because Colorado law requires county clerks to wait until nine days after the election before determining they have all the ballots in hand, and at least on the Democrats’ side this time, there will be some complicated math involved that can’t even begin until mostly complete results are available.

Colorado’s presidential primary – the first the state has conducted in 20 years – is a mostly mail-ballot election, and a good share of those ballots will be received by county clerks on Election Day. That can add significant processing time at county election centers, where bipartisan teams of election judges must verify the signature on every envelope and determine whether it’s a Democratic or Republican ballot before sending it into the counting system.

“That can take more time,” Shellman said.

He added that most counties are planning to shut down the count at 10 p.m. or just before midnight and resume on Wednesday.

“Election day is a really long day for the citizen election judges,” he said.

It’s common in Colorado’s mail ballot elections for as much as 40% of ballots to arrive on Election Day, but officials are bracing for even bigger numbers than usual in this year’s presidential primary because the fluid Democratic field has led voters to hang on to their ballots until the last minute.

The count isn’t finished until the ninth day after the election, Shellman noted, when the deadline to receive ballots from military and overseas voters has been reached and voters whose signatures were missing or rejected have had a chance to cure their ballots.

Nothing is official until 22 days after the election – March 26 in this case – when county canvass boards have convened and certified the results.

If the Democratic primary is close, the end results could hinge on the number of cured signatures and late-arriving ballots from military and overseas residents, whose ballots must be postmarked by the time polls close. (Local voters don’t have that luxury and must ensure their ballots are received by county clerks by 7 p.m. Tuesday.)

There’s little suspense in the state’s Republican primary, which features President Donald Trump and five challengers, including one who withdrew from the race shortly before ballots went out.

In addition, unlike the Democrats, the Republicans allocate delegates on a winner-take-all basis for candidates who get more than 50% of the vote statewide, so Trump is almost certain to emerge from Colorado with all 37 of the available GOP delegates.

On the Democratic side, where 67 delegates are at stake, it’s more complicated, both because there’s a crowded primary with five major candidates and because the party hands out delegates proportionally to everyone who gets at least 15% of the vote either statewide or in any of the state’s seven congressional districts.

Democratic candidates can scoop up a share of 23 delegates based on their finish statewide, with the remaining 44 allocated by congressional district.

It will be up to Democratic Party officials to figure out how each of the candidates perform in individual congressional districts, since the Secretary of State’s Office reports results by county, and some counties span more than one congressional district.

If some candidates are on the cusp of the crucial 15% threshold to earn a delegate, party officials might not be able to finalize their math until all the ballots are counted – and they’ve had a chance to examine precinct-level returns, which won’t be available until later in March.