Next week's election: Why Americans might wait days to know their next president

With election day approaching next week Harris and Trump are neck-and-neck in polls. The result declaration could take anywhere from hours to weeks depending on vote margins and possible court-cases

October 28 2024, 11:08 PM  •  529 views

Next week's election: Why Americans might wait days to know their next president

Next weeks presidential match-up between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump looks like its going to be super-tight‚ based on pre-election data

The vote-counting process might be quick – or drag on for quite a while (depending on how close the numbers are). Exit-polls will start coming out at 5pm ET on election-day; however news channels cant announce winners while people are still voting

Hereʼs what happens with exit-polls:

  • They dont release results for close-call states
  • They mix actual votes with poll data
  • They collect info about voter choices and backgrounds
  • They wait for clear winning margins

The official timeline is pretty drawn-out: states need to double-check their numbers first; then Congress makes it official on jan 6th 2025. Looking back at past elections – the 2000 race between Al Gore and George W Bush took over a month to settle because of Floridaʼs super-close count

America‚ Iʼm honoured that you have chosen me to lead our great country

Joe Bidenʼs social media post after 2020 win

The last election back in 2020 took about four days to call – thats when Joe Biden got enough votes in Pennsylvania to win. But if this years race ends up being really tight we might see some court-fights that could make the waiting even longer

Remember that time in 2021 when the Capitol got stormed during vote counting? Well the same process will happen again – but hopefully without any drama this time