When it comes to US elections, voting day is not the only date to put in the political diary – particularly with Donald Trump expected to take any loss to the courts.
Here we look at the eight key dates you need to know:
5 November
While called election day, it is better thought of as the last day voters can vote, having been able to cast early or mail-in ballots already.
7 November
State election officials begin to certify the results at a staggered pace. Battleground state deadlines are as follows: Georgia, 23 November, Michigan, 25 November, North Carolina and Nevada, 26 November, Wisconsin, 1 December, Arizona, 2 December. Pennsylvania has no specific date.
25 November
This is the last day a mail ballot can arrive and still be counted, so long as it arrives with a 5 November postmark.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia allow mail ballots to arrive after election day.
26 November
Donald Trump will be sentenced in New York for the hush money trial that found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
11 December
The Electoral Count Act stipulates every state’s governor must certify the results by this date.
Any legal challenges should then be completed by 16 December.
This is the first election in which these rules apply. The act was amended after the 6 January insurrection attempt by pro-Trump supporters.
17 December
A controversial quirk of the US Constitution, the people don’t technically pick a president, but rather choose a group of “electors” to do it for them.
On 17 December those electors will be sent to the Electoral College by each state to vote for a candidate as instructed by the public.
Each state has a different number of electoral college votes based on population size. In 48 of them, these votes are won on a winner-takes-all basis.
6 January
The sitting vice president, this time Kamala Harris, performs the ceremonial duty of presiding over a joint session of the House and Senate in which all electoral college votes are counted and the winner is declared.
20 January
The president-elect takes the oath of office on the steps of the Capitol.
