when will we know the result of the presidential election?

Decryption In the United States, where the president is elected by indirect universal suffrage, it will be necessary to wait a few hours, or even a few days, after the closing of the polling stations to find out who, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, won.

Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Millions of Americans have already participated in the vote, thanks to early and postal voting, and millions more will do so this Tuesday, November 5 to elect the 47^e president of the United States. In a race that promises to be one of the closest in history, it is difficult to know when exactly the name of the winner will be known. “Le Nouvel Obs” explains.

Also read

We must first understand the American electoral system: in the United States, the president is elected by indirect universal suffrage in one round. The voters, who vote for a president-vice-president duo on their ballot, will in fact elect the elector of their county. There are 538 electors, members of this electoral college, who will elect the president. The more populous a state is, the more electors it has – 54 for California and its 39 million inhabitants. It is therefore state by state that the vote will be played out.

It is this indirect universal suffrage which explains why it has already happened that the candidate with the most votes is not the winner, compared to the one who won the most electors – this was particularly the case in 2016 , when Hillary Clinton had received almost 3 million more votes than Donald Trump, but the latter, by winning in several key states, had won 304 electors.

On the evening of the election, the first polling stations will close at 6 p.m., the last between 8 and 9 p.m. It will therefore not be necessary to count on definitive results before the middle of the night (French time) but, usually, first Estimates fall at around 8 p.m. New York time (2 a.m. in France).

Also read

Throughout the night, the results will be counted state by state, and each victory will add a certain number of voters to the balance of one candidate or the other. It is when a candidate exceeds the bar of 270 voters – the majority – that he will be considered the winner.

In 2016, Trump was declared the winner at 3 a.m. in New York (9 a.m. in Paris). Eight years earlier, the first projections announcing a victory for Barack Obama had fallen on the very evening of the vote, shortly after midnight.

A process that can last a long time

But several elements can delay the announcement of the results: this is the case of the number of postal votes, which must be subject to specific checks, in particular to ensure that the voter has not also voted in person .

Added to this are separate verification rules in each State, which can more or less lengthen the counting. In several states such as Nevada, one of the key voting states, the counting of postal votes can continue, if necessary, several days after the election date. A practice that Donald Trump denounced during the 2020 election, since initial results sometimes gave him the lead in certain counties, particularly in key states, before the final count of postal votes – the number of which had exploded with the pandemic – reverses the trend in favor of Joe Biden.

Also read

A very close vote in certain key states could also delay the announcement of the results, since in certain states, recounts could be automatically carried out in the event of a difference that is too small. And that's without counting the appeals that the candidates themselves may file.

If there are many disputes, the process could take a long time – a very long time. In 2000, during the election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, the latter lost three key states, where victory in just one of them would have made him 43^e president of the United States. Attention was focused on one of these states, Florida, where the gap was tiny. There were many disputed ballots, and multiple recounts were requested. Finally, it was more than a month later, on December 12, that the Supreme Court decided: Bush won in this state by 537 votes, or 0.009%. A victory which allowed him to win the election, although Al Gore acquired the popular vote with 540,000 more votes.

According to observers, there could be multiple appeals after this Tuesday's vote. While the race is very close, Donald Trump has denounced attempted fraud in advance, and the Republican Party has assembled an army of lawyers to contest any defeat. On the Democratic side, the party is also ready to face appeals.

Also read

Whether the result is known several hours or several days after the end of the vote, the rest of the American electoral process remains the same: the electors will meet on December 17 to officially vote for their candidate, then send their results to Congress, which will validate on January 6, before an inauguration on January 20.