America elects the US president in two stages, and November 5 is only one of them.
The media often “predict” the winner of the election before the official end of vote counting. This happens when the elections in the US are more or less calm and analytical data suggest that one of the candidates has won enough votes to win. This prediction is based on percentages of votes counted, results in key states, historical data, and exit polls. But these predictions are speculative, and there are cases when the predicted results do not coincide with the official ones.
When will the official results of the US election be announced?
The official announcement of the results of the voter’s vote takes place much later than previously reported by the mass media. This process takes place in several stages.
To answer the question of when the results of the US elections will be known, it is necessary to understand how elections are held in the US. Here it is worth considering that Americans can vote in different ways: at the polling stations on election day, in advance in person (early voting), by mail or with the help of absentee ballots (absentee ballots). Votes cast in different ways are counted separately, which adds to the complexity of the process.
Most polling stations close in the evening on election day (this year it’s November 5), and then the direct counting of votes begins. Votes cast in person on election day are counted first. The results may begin to be announced a few hours after the polls close. However, in many states, votes submitted by mail or as absentee ballots take longer to process and count, which can delay the final tally.
However, the counting of voters’ votes does not yet give a clear answer as to who has become the winner. Next, the second stage of the election begins, which will determine the final result – this is the vote of the electoral college or voters.
Elections in the United States: how voters vote
The Electoral College is a unique system that determines the results of the US presidential election. Its role is to elect the president and vice president of the United States based on the votes cast by citizens in each state. The electoral college has 538 members (voters). California, as the most populous state, has 55 electors, while less populous states such as Wyoming have only 3 each.
The bottom line is that the de facto president of the United States is not elected by the citizens of the United States, but by the states. Each state has a certain number of electors, based on the state’s population. And it is these voters who vote on behalf of the state for one or another candidate – depending on how the citizens of their state voted.
Most states (except Maine and Nebraska) use the winner-takes-all principle. That is, all electors of the state vote for the candidate who received the most electoral votes in their state. For example, if Donald Trump wins 49% of the popular vote in California and Kamala Harris wins 51%, all 55 electors will vote for Harris.
If voting day for US citizens is the first Tuesday in November, then voters go to the polls in December. And they do it in their states, not in Washington.
For example, if in California Harris already has a conditional 60% of the vote, there is no need to fight to raise this indicator to 70%. After all, in both cases, she will receive the same 55 votes from the state at the electoral college. Likewise, it makes no sense for her to fight, for example, for Texas. If she conditionally has 30% support there, even if she raises her rating in this state to 45%, she will still not receive a single vote from him at the electoral college.
But in some states the ratings of the candidates are almost equal – about 50%. And it makes sense to fight for such states. Such states are called “swing states” because in some elections a candidate from the Republicans wins there, and in others – from the Democrats. Unlike “swing” states, most other states have voted for candidates of only one party – Democratic or Republican – for many years in a row.
The 2024 US election has seven “swing states” for which Trump and Harris are fighting: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin. It is likely that the votes of these states will determine the winner of this year’s election.
