America finally decides. At the end of a campaign marked by violence and dramatic events, American voters are voting this Tuesday to elect their future president, or their first president. Who will enter the White House, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? Several scenarios are possible.
No final results this evening
In the event of a close vote, it is possible that the final results will not be known as of Tuesday evening. To win the presidential election, the candidate must obtain at least 270 electors, out of a total of 538. According to the principle of “winner takes all”, the camp that comes first in each state wins all of its electors, except in Maine and Nebraska.
If certain states leave little suspense as to the result of the vote, the seven “swing states”, which represent 93 electors and which can swing from one side to the other, will be decisive.
However, each State can take more or less time to count all the ballots, especially in a context where every vote counts. The increase in postal voting, which takes longer to count, can also explain the lengthening of deadlines. The first key state where polls will close is Georgia, at 7 p.m. (1 a.m. French time) followed by a half-hour by North Carolina.
In 2020, Pennsylvania took four days to count the votes, then certifying the arrival in the lead of Democrat Joe Biden. In this state, mail-in ballots cannot be counted until Election Day, notes the New York Times. Ditto in Arizona where most voters vote by mail and the count generally takes several days.
The 2020 presidential election is not the only example of a delay in final results. In 2000, during the duel between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, both candidates had to wait more than a month for the result from the state of Florida to have a winner.
A narrow victory for Kamala Harris
Donald Trump has already started in his meetings to talk about “cheating” and irregularities in the vote. If Kamala Harris wins, probably by a narrow margin in a few swing states, Donald Trump will certainly challenge the results in court, as he did in 2020. More than 200 appeals have already been filed in court, an unprecedented number, to challenge a counting rule here, a mention there on a ballot paper, and to give the feeling of immense disorder.
Democrats are prepared for this eventuality. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than a thousand lawyers are on the starting blocks to react to each local challenge filed.
If the legal clarifications take time, the already electric climate could become even more tense. According to a CNN poll dated at the end of October, only 30% of Americans think that Donald Trump will admit defeat if Kamala Harris wins. The invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is on everyone's minds.
A narrow victory for Donald Trump
By winning the votes of swing states, even if he does not have a majority of the popular vote, Donald Trump could be re-elected to the White House in a scenario similar to that of 2016.
The Democratic camp should recognize its defeat. According to a Pew Research Center poll dated October 10, 72% of voters surveyed believe that if Kamala Harris loses, she will accept the results and recognize Donald Trump's victory.
A big victory for one of the two camps
A large victory for one of the two candidates appears unlikely, as poll projections have tightened in recent weeks. Kamala Harris would benefit from 48% of voting intentions, according to the latest polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, compared to 46.8% for Donald Trump.
According to predictions from the RealClear Polling site, the vice-president would have 211 rather assured electors, while the Republican can normally count on 219 electors. Of the 270 needed. There are therefore still 108 electors in the balance, notably in the seven “swing states” which can swing the election.
Even if one of the two candidates wins everything, it will be far from the 365 electoral votes won in 2008 by Barack Obama or the 379 won by Bill Clinton in 1996.
Perfect equality?
This is a situation that would be unprecedented in the modern political history of the country. Mathematically, the electoral college could be split in two with a perfect tie: 269 votes in favor of Kamala Harris and the same for Donald Trump.
In this case, the Constitution provides for a procedure known as “election by representative group”. Concretely, the House of Representatives, which is made up of 435 members, is responsible for electing the president. But elected officials do not give their opinion individually: the representatives of each state must agree among themselves to give only one name. Each state, whether it has fifty representatives or just one, has one vote. Since the United States has 50 states, the new majority would be 26.
The Senate is responsible for appointing the vice-president. Each senator, two in number per state, has one vote. The majority wins.
The deadline is not unlimited: the representatives have until January 20, the date of the inauguration, to reach an agreement.
