It is not impossible to know the results on the evening of November 5, but here is why the counting could also take several days.
The American presidential election takes place on Tuesday, November 5, a day of truth in a country more fractured than ever between the camp of former President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Although the polling stations will close at 7 p.m., this does not mean that the results will come out in the evening. The fault is that the territory of the United States is so large that it spans several time zones: Western states will continue to vote when Eastern states have already finished counting the ballot boxes.
Postal voting, a huge additional count
Not to mention a way of voting that is very popular with Americans this year: postal voting. Less than a week before election day, 67 million voters opted for this choice (twice as many as in 2020), which gives the possibility of voting in advance rather than going to the polls on D-day. .
In some states, the ballot is counted as soon as it is received, in others at the same time as the counting, which risks extending the counting of votes. This is what happened in 2020: the counting of postal votes took longer than that of the polling stations. Which had played a nasty trick on Donald Trump, leading in several counties in Nevada, until the postal votes completely reversed the trend in favor of Joe Biden.
The Republican camp then strongly criticized the postal voting method, going so far as to denounce cheating. Donald Trump then incited his supporters to storm the Capitol, giving rise to completely surreal scenes. This method of postal voting is, however, more than encouraged by this same Republican camp today, which would not want to let any vote slip away…
When to ask the court to recount
This election is shaping up to be one of the closest in U.S. history. What we call the “sxing states”, these decisive states where the difference in votes promises to be minimal, it is possible that a recount of the votes will be ordered if the vote is too close between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
This vote recount may even end up in court, which could further delay the announcement of the election results.
A few hours, a few days… Several weeks?
For all these reasons, an announcement of the final result on the evening of the election seems unlikely. In 2020, it took four days for victory to be definitively granted to Joe Biden. On the contrary in 2016, the result fell late on the night of the election around 2:30 a.m.
An extreme case should be kept in mind: the results of the elections in 2000 were arrived after… 36 days. Candidate Al Gore used all the legal paraphernalia at his disposal to request a recount of the votes. The Supreme Court ended up ruling in favor of George W. Bush.
