Why the vote counting in Mississippi and Alaska is being significantly delayed for the US Midterm Elections

The reasons for the delays in Mississippi and Alaska are different.
In Mississippi, the decisive reason is poor election management.
In the US, there is a system called "affidavit voting," where if someone forgot their ID or was omitted from the voter registry for some reason, they are allowed to vote, but the vote is only counted after their identity or eligibility is verified later.
In Mississippi, the locations of 100 polling stations were changed or closed, and the voter registry was compiled based on data from a specific credit reporting agency, which differs from current actual addresses, causing a mass omission of eligible voters from the registry. Problems such as two polling stations being set up in a single location also caused confusion.
As a result, a large number of affidavit votes were cast, particularly in counties with high Black populations.
The total estimated number of affidavit votes is between 12,000 and 20,000, and since the margin is slim, there is no choice but to deal with the chaos of verifying the identity and eligibility of all those votes.
In any case, the deadline for submitting election results is the 13th, so a conclusion will be reached by then.
The reason for Alaska is different; due to inconvenient transportation, the proportion of mail-in (absentee) voting is high. In the US, absentee ballots arriving by the 13th are valid, and overseas absentee ballots arriving by the 18th are valid. Since it is also a battleground area, the results can only be determined once those votes arrive. The target date for certifying the results is the 25th.
In short, Mississippi is facing issues with election management, while Alaska is a region where results naturally take longer to come out due to its geographical characteristics.