Tuesday is election day in the United States of America (USA). The first election results will be announced on election night, as each state closes the polls. In a country that is deeply divided, it is truly uncertain whether Democratic candidate Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump will win.
It is known that the victory will be decided by seven countries, unless there are some surprises. The biggest questions are when the results will be known, how much the flow of misinformation will affect the elections, whether there will be violence. Both camps are ready to enter legal processes to challenge the results, which could complicate things even more.
Here's what to watch on election day and night in the USA.
When will the winner be announced?
Election Day in America is actually election Sunday lately - because each state has its own rules for counting votes, and legal challenges to the results are also possible - all of which together can delay the announcement of the winner. The fact is that no one knows exactly how long it takes to announce the winner.
The AP agency, which traditionally follows election results, declared Joe Biden the winner in 2020 four days after the polls closed - on Saturday afternoon. Some states, however, did not have final results even then. Georgia declared Biden the winner 16 days after the election, and North Carolina announced that Trump had won ten days later.
In the 2016 elections, however, the winner was known a few hours after the polls closed. Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton was declared at 2:29 a.m. EDT on Wednesday.
This time, the race is very tight in seven swing states: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Polls in those states close at different times: Arizona closes polls at 21 p.m. ET and doesn't release results until all precincts report their results, or at least an hour after polls close. In Georgia, polls close at 19 p.m. ET, and the AP released the first results of the 2020 election at 19:20 p.m. that same evening, although the final winners were not announced until November 19.
Michigan, a state Trump won in 2016 after 30 years of Democratic dominance, closes the polls at 20 and 21 p.m. ET. AP released preliminary results very soon after the polls closed. In Nevada, polls close at 22pm ET. There, the results are not announced before the last voter casts his ballot, so there is a longer wait between the closing of the polling stations and the first results.
North Carolina polls close at 19:30pm ET. In the last elections, AP announced the preliminary results at 19:42, and the final results only ten days after the elections. Polls in Pennsylvania close at 20pm ET. In the last election, AP announced the first results at 20:09 p.m., but did not declare Biden the winner until four days later.
In Wisconsin, polls close at 20 p.m. ET. AP announced the first results at 21 p.m. in the 2020 elections, and the final victory of the Democrats was announced the following day.
Will there be any indication of how the race is going?
For early indications, two East Coast states - North Carolina and Georgia - should be monitored, where results could arrive fairly quickly. This does not mean that the final results in those states will be known if the difference is small, but these are the first states to close polling stations and where one can guess how things will develop further.
For a more detailed analysis, one should look at the development of the situation in urban and rural areas in certain states in the North and Southeast, where Democrats have been winning elections since 2020.
In North Carolina, for example, one can track how Harris stands in Wake and Mecklenburg counties, which include the big cities of Charlotte and Raleigh — and that will indicate how many votes Trump needs to get in the less populated, more rural areas where he has dominated.
In Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris needs a big turnout in Philadelphia, but also needs to do well in rural counties west and north of the city. Philadelphia and its suburbs give 43 percent of the total number of votes in Pennsylvania. Harris was very active in the campaign in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties, where Biden had a better result than Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Elsewhere in the so-called "blue wall" (the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan), Trump must moderate Democratic growth in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, especially in Oakland County. Waukesha County in Wisconsin presents him with the same challenge.
Where will the candidates be?
Trump will have several rallies on the last day of the campaign, which will end in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is his tradition. That rally is expected to begin late Monday night.
After that, Trump goes to Palm Beach, Florida, where he will vote, and then go to his election headquarters, where it was announced that the election results will be monitored in an organized manner.
Harris will hold a rally in Pennsylvania on the last day of the campaign, and the final one will be in Philadelphia. She will follow the election results in the capital, Washington, at Howard University, where she studied and graduated in 1986.
Apart from that, the democratic candidate did not announce any other activities on election day.
She said on Sunday that she voted by mail and that her ballot was "on its way to California."
How many people have already voted, and who is waiting for election day?
In some states, voters are allowed to vote even before election day, and 78 million Americans have already done so - whether they voted at the polling station or by mail.
This number of voters will turn certain polling stations, such as some in Georgia, into a "ghost town" on November 5, say members of the polling boards.
One of the main reasons for the high turnout in early voting is that this time Trump invited his supporters to vote early - the opposite of what he did in 2020 when he ordered to vote on election day. The number of people who came out confirms that many Republicans listened to Trump this year and the question is whether the number of voters will be higher than the one on election day.
There are changes among the Democrats as well. Four years ago, when there was a pandemic, Democrats mostly voted by mail. This time, since there is no risk to public health, many go to the polling stations, which is expected on election day itself.
Both parties invested heavily in convincing voters to go to the polls. Trump's campaign entrusted that task to external collaborators, such as billionaire Elon Musk, who also organized a lottery for voters - for which he was sued in Philadelphia.
The Democrats opted for a more traditional way - a door-to-door campaign, carried out on the ground by more than 2.500 paid associates, who worked in 357 chancelleries - only in seven states that decide elections.
Will there be a riot?
Recently, Trump has been making baseless claims about the questionable integrity of the election. He falsely insists that he will only lose the election if the Democrats steal it - even though surveys show that the outcome is indeed uncertain.
The Republican nominee could once again declare victory on election night, as he did in 2020.
Such rhetoric can have serious consequences, as was seen on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed Congress and tried to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden's election victory. Five people died then. Unfortunately, there is still the possibility of violence occurring in this election season.
The Republican National Committee will have tens of thousands of "election integrity" observers on voting day, watching for irregularities. Critics, however, fear that this will lead to harassment of voters or election board members. In some polling stations, workers demanded police presence in addition to the already existing button to quickly alert the authorities in case of danger, as well as bullet-proof glass.
At the same time, Trump's associates remind that he survived two assassinations and is the target of threats.
Police in Washington and other cities are already preparing for potential riots on Election Day.
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