The last time Americans went to the polls to elect a president was in November 2020, when it took four days after voting closed for Joe Biden to be declared the winner.

This was largely due to razor-thin margins in critical battleground states that led to some recounts, as well as large numbers of mail ballots that had to be counted after Election Day. There was the added challenge of conducting this entire process in a global environment. Pandemic.

Some states have since changed their election laws to speed up election counting. However, even if it doesn’t take that long this time, the only thing we can be sure of is that the winner will not be determined. vote the night itself.

When do polls open and close?

There is no set national time for voting to begin on the morning of November 5. In most states, voting will begin at 7 a.m. local time, while others will begin as early as 5 a.m. or as late as 10 a.m. local time. Voting will begin at various times, decided by different counties or municipalities in some states, such as New Hampshire, Tennessee and Washington.

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Polls close at various times across the country. Voting in Indiana and Kentucky will end at 18:00 US Eastern time (23:00 GMT), while in the westernmost states of Hawaii and Alaska, polls will not close until midnight US Eastern time (05:00 GMT).

The first indication of which candidate is performing better will emerge between 7pm and 8pm eastern time (midnight and 01am GMT), when polls close in the battleground states of Georgia and North Carolina. Both states are competitive Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and if the former is declared the winner in both, then the contest will swing in his favor.

The next big moment could happen between 20:00 and 21:00 eastern time (01:00 and 02:00 GMT), when voting ends in the so-called blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. However, it seems unlikely that a winner will be declared immediately in any of these states. At 10 p.m. Eastern time (3 a.m. GMT), polls will close in two other critical states, Arizona and Nevada.

When will the votes be counted?

There are several factors that could prevent results from being announced in the hours immediately following the end of voting. In Arizona, for example, state law allows voters to drop off their completed ballots at the polling station. vote day or the day before – something not all states do. However, these “early early” ballots cannot be processed until voting is over.

Pennsylvania is arguably the most valuable state that both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are competing for. The state has 19 electoral votes, the highest number among battleground states, so the winner will likely win the electoral college (the group of officials who choose the president based on the votes in each state) and thus the presidency.

But Pennsylvania does not allow election officials to process mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. local time on election day; This could mean results will take longer than 24 hours after close polls are announced.

However, Alauna Safarpour, an assistant professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, doesn’t think the wait will be as long as it was four years ago. writing for Speech On Oct. 29, he said it was “very likely” that fewer Pennsylvanians would choose to vote by mail this time around.

“Fewer voters chose to vote by mail in the 2022 midterm elections compared to the 2020 general election, and this trend is likely to continue in 2024,” he says.

Two more key states, Michigan and Nevada, have also made changes to their election counting since 2020. These states now allow ballots to be processed before polling day. On the other hand, North Carolina’s ability to process votes ahead of the election has become more difficult due to the recent damage caused by Hurricane Helene. This may cause further delays.

In Wisconsin, vote counting can also be quite slow in the state’s two largest counties (Milwaukee and Dane). Milwaukee and Dane counties are both major urban centers with a combined population of approximately 1.5 million. The difference in these districts will be important to the outcome in Wisconsin and the overall presidential race.

What can delay results?

There are concerns that some domestic actors may seek to obstruct and delay election results in critical swing states. For example, in January 2020, several Republicans in Congress objected to the results in Pennsylvania and Arizona. Biden.

And in seven swing states, people falsely claiming to be election board members Embers as winners of their respective states. Their votes were sent to Congress to be counted along with the votes of the actual voters; Some members of Congress argued that the new tally of electoral votes cast doubt on the official results in certain states. In 2023, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged his role in overturning the election in Georgia.

Norman Eisen, Samara Angel and Clare Boone from the Brookings Institution think tank offered detailed analysis of how this scenario could repeat in 2024. They point to nefarious strategies that could be used to confuse the results by refusing to certify the election. “at the district level”.

For example, three election deniers—Rick Jeffares, Janice Johnston, and Janelle King—hold the balance of power in Georgia’s state election board. New rules were jointly developed that allow vote certification to be halted while investigations into allegations of “irregularities” are launched.

Eisen, Angel, and Boone argue that “while these initiatives will likely suffer the same fate as previous efforts, they may still increase uncertainty and mistrust.” So, given the existence of these threats and the fact that the polls are messing around, we probably won’t know the winner of the election for at least a few days.

This article was first published by Richard Hargy, Visiting Research Fellow in International Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. Speech.