When will we know who wins?

American voters go to the polls on November 5 to choose their next president.

US election results are sometimes announced within hours of polls closing, but this year’s close election could mean a longer wait.

In some presidential races, the winner is named late on election night or early the next morning. This time, the tight race in many states may cause the media to wait longer before predicting who will win.

Democrat Kamala Harris, the current vice president, and Republican Donald Trump, the former president, have been facing off for weeks.

Narrow victories can also mean a recount. For example, in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, a statewide recount would be required if there was a difference of half a percentage point between the votes cast for the winner and loser. In 2020, the margin was just over 1.1 percentage points.

Legal challenges are also possible. More than 100 pre-election lawsuits have been filed, including challenges to voter eligibility and voter roll management, by Republicans.

Other situations that could cause delays include any election-related disturbances, especially at polling places.

On the other hand, ballot counting has been accelerated in some areas, including the key state of Michigan, and far fewer ballots will be cast by mail than in the last election, which took place during the Covid pandemic.

The 2020 election took place on Tuesday, November 3. However, American television networks did not declare Joe Biden the winner until the early morning of Saturday, November 7, after the results in Pennsylvania. becomes clearer.

In other recent elections, voters had much shorter wait times.

In 2016, when Trump was elected president, he was declared the winner shortly before 03:00 EST (08:00 GMT) the day after the election.

In 2012, when Barack Obama won a second term, his victory was predicted before midnight on voting day.

However, the 2000 election between George W Bush and Al Gore was a notable exception.

The vote was held on November 7, but the two campaigns clashed over close competition in Florida and the race was not decided until December 12. The U.S. Supreme Court voted to end the state’s recount, keeping Mr. Bush as the winner and giving him the White House.

Across the country, first polls will close at 18:00 EST (23:00 GMT) on Tuesday night and final votes will close at 01:00 EST (06:00 GMT) early on Wednesday.

The initial tabulation may have a Republican bias in some states, which were called “red mirages” in previous years. This is because smaller counties (with fewer voters) finish counting ballots earlier than large cities, which tend to lean Democratic.

But this race is expected to go down to the wire seven vibrational states which experts believe Harris or Trump could reasonably win. They are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

19:00 EST (00:00 GMT) – Poll closes Georgia and five other states, and partially in two more states. This is also when US television networks can start making first calls of the night, in less competitive states like Kentucky.

19:30 EST (00:30 GMT) – Polls close in three states, including North Carolina. With early results from North Carolina and Georgia, a picture can begin to form about which candidate is performing better, but it’s still too early to determine any trends emerging nationally.

20:00 EST (01:00 GMT) – Poll closes Pennsylvania15 other states and the District of Columbia, as well as a portion in Michigan and four other states. Georgia’s top election official estimates that about 75% of votes will be counted by then.

21:00 EST (02:00 GMT) – Voting ends later Arizona, Wisconsin and 12 other states. All remaining polls closed in Michigan. Michigan allows officials to begin counting ballots a week before election day, but they are not allowed to reveal results until those polls close. By contrast, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin do not allow ballot counting to begin until in-person voting begins, leading to possible delays in results in those states.

22:00 EST (03:00 GMT) – Polls close Nevada and two other states, and partially in two other states. Ballots in Nevada could take days to count, as the state allows mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they are mailed on election day and arrive no later than November 9.

Some absentee and mail-in ballots, including those from military personnel and Americans living abroad, are often among the last to be counted.

Typically, election day votes are counted first, followed by early and mail ballots, those that have been challenged, then overseas and military ballots.

Local election officials – sometimes appointed, sometimes elected – verify, process and count individual ballots, in a process known as canvassing.

Verification of votes involves comparing the number of votes with the number of active voters; remove, open, and inspect each ballot for tears, stains, or other damage; and record and investigate any discrepancies.

Counting votes involves inserting each ballot into an electronic scanner to tabulate the results. Some cases require manual counting or double counting.

Every state and locality has strict rules about who can participate in the referendum, the order in which ballots are processed, and which parts are open to the public, including how partisan observers can monitor and intervene in vote counting.

Once every valid vote has been included in the final results, a process called the electoral college is carried out.

In each state, the number of electoral votes that can be won varies, and securing these votes – not just the support of voters themselves – is what will ultimately win the presidency.

Generally, states award all of their electoral college votes to whoever wins the popular vote, and this was confirmed after a meeting on December 17.

The new US Congress will then meet on January 6 to count the electoral college votes and confirm the new president.

After the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede and rallied supporters to march to the US Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s victory.

He called on Vice President Mike Pence to reject the results – but Pence refused.

Even after the riot was resolved and members of Congress reassembled, 147 Republicans voted unsuccessfully to overturn Trump’s defeat.

Election reforms since then have made it harder for lawmakers to object to certified results sent to them from individual states. They also clarified that the vice president does not have the authority to unilaterally reject electoral votes.

However, election watchers expect that efforts to delay the certification of the 2024 vote could take place at the local and state levels.

Trump, his running mate JD Vance and top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have repeatedly refused to explicitly say they would accept the results if he lost.

The President-elect will begin his term upon inauguration on Monday, January 20, 2025, on the grounds of the United States Capitol complex.

This will be the 60th presidential inauguration in American history.

The event will see the new president swear an oath pledging to uphold the Constitution and then deliver his inaugural address.