Vote Counting 101

I find it very odd that the American electoral machine can't count and post results with any due haste.  After two hours in any general election in Canada, you basically have everything over with.  

I think the difference comes down to the overall administrative infrastructure.  Provincial and federal elections are run professionally by an independent, non-partisan agency.  Votes are supervised and counted by paid staffers, with observers from candidates locally if the candidate chooses and can staff that position.  Results are dispatched as soon as everyone agrees that they're good to a central location, who then publishes them immediately.  

Longest I've seen personally was after two recounts that led the polling station I was observing to be the third-last to report in my riding.  Two hours, 15 minutes.  By the time I was done, we basically knew our local candidate had won (although it did go down to my and the remaining two polling stations - very close, about 150-200 vote margin out of 30K or so cast...)  and the party had surprisingly lost, and badly (oops.)  

Here, you have only 55% returned out of WA after 2 3/4 hours of returns (and numerous rumored results circulating here...) and 1% returned out after 3/4 hours of MI returns (and rumors...)  Why?  I'm confused.