Hey foreign types.
Context. How long does it take for you guys to get results after major but routine elections?
Here is what happens in Germany say for the Federal parliament, i.e. the most important election:
if you are older than 18 you are automatically registered as a voter and will receive the paperwork you need for the actual vote by mail some weeks ahead.
Election day is always on a Sunday and you go to your designated voting site (usually a school) between 8AM and 6PM. In most cases you can literally walk there, since voting districts are pretty small.
You get in, wait for maybe a couple of minutes, get your ballot (an actual piece of paper listing the parties running for parliament, get in a booth, make your mark, seal the envelope, throw it in a box and are done.
The media are not allowed to publish any prognosis numbers on election day before 6PM. Vote counting starts at 6PM and is public, i.e. everybody may watch.
Then on 6.01PM the media will publish a prognosis based on polling people after they voted. That gives already a pretty good guess.
Over the next couple of hours, once results from the voting districts come in, a series of increasingly precise projections come in showing the seat distribution of parliament. Those numbers are usually reliable by 11PM except if a party is very close to the 5% threshold (a party needs at least 5% to get in). We usually have a "preliminary" official total result by Monday morning and the "final" official a week or two later (a formality, the result won't change).
So, pretty quick with the voting results, but the negotiation between the parties on how to form a new government (and who will be chancellor) can take weeks or months depending on the seat distribution giving one party or obvious coallition an absolute majority or not.
