The up-coming battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is shaping up to be a nail-biting contest‚ with polls showing an ultra-tight race (that could take quite a while to sort-out)
Next weeks vote-counting starts when exit-polls come out at 5pm ET; however news channels cant make winner predictions while voting continues. Exit-polls work differently now – they dont use them for swing-states but mix them with real-time data and other stats to make predictions
The time to know who won depends on vote margins: if its clear-cut weʼll know in hours but if its super-close it might drag on for weeks. Looking back at history – the Bush-Gore match-up from early 2000s took over a month to finish because of Floridaʼs re-count mess
The official process has its own time-line:
- States need to check all votes first
- Then they make results official
- Congress meets to count electoral votes
- Final announcement happens in early Jan
America‚ Iʼm honoured that you have chosen me to lead our great country
Last time around it took about 4 days after voting ended to name the winner; though this time with new rules and possible legal stuff – nobody knows how long weʼll have to wait