American Election Day is finally here.
Donald J. Trump’s surprising victory over Hilary Clinton may have been only four years ago, but it also seems like a lifetime has passed since New York Times The needle tipped dramatically, and traumatically for many, from one extreme to the other.
Only the events of 2020 – Trump on trial, the Covid-19 pandemic, subsequent closures and economic collapses, the outbreak of the Black Lives Matter movement, the death and replacement of a US Supreme Court justice – normally they would provide enough fodder for four whole people. -year term.
But that’s how Trump’s tenure has been: a steady stream of outrage, fake news and misinformation, polarizing rhetoric, instigation of violence, and one unprecedented development after another that makes it hard to remember any of them.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan tried to summarize the four years in two minutes:
On the eve of the elections, @MehdiHasanShow Tonight, I tried to sum up the gruesome, and lows, of Trump’s four years in office in just … TWO MINUTES.
120 seconds exactly.
(I had to speak very fast).
Turn on the clock:pic.twitter.com/rHK43ffvU2
– Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 3, 2020
But all of that has led us to US Election Day 2020, with Donald Trump against former US Vice President Joe Biden. Voting day itself marks the end of an election season that seemed to start almost as soon as Trump was elected and has seen nearly 100 million Americans vote early.
In 2016, we told you how the global media would have covered Donald Trump’s victory if it had happened in a “third world country”. This year, Nairobi-based cartoonist and writer Patrick Gathara set the scene with a similar premise:
#BREAK African envoys have called on Americans to keep the peace during the elections and to be prepared to accept the result of the vote. In a joint statement, diplomats condemned recent incidents of incitement, violence and intimidation targeting opposition supporters.
– gathara (@gathara) November 1, 2020
#BREAK African aid agencies are sounding the alarm about the potential for post-election violence to exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation in the crisis-ravaged United States. Humanitarian workers are calling on the international community to do more to protect the civilian population.
– gathara (@gathara) November 2, 2020
Read all the thread here.
So what’s the best way to move on, this November 3, especially since the results are likely to come late at night, if you are in the US, and possibly throughout the next day, depending on where else in the world? you are?
We have some suggestions:
When will the results of the American elections arrive?
Due to the huge number of early voting this year, as well as the concerted efforts by Trump and the Republican Party to raise unfounded doubts about certain types of ballots, most expect results to take longer than normal.
The first votes of the day, from Dixville Notch in New Hampshire, a precinct that votes at midnight, are now available.
The results are: 5 votes for Biden / Harris, 0 votes for Trump / Pence. # Election2020 #Election day #MednightVote #DixvilleNotch #Presidential election #Nhpolitical pic.twitter.com/R24iDOu4pe
– Dixville Vote (@DixvilleVote) November 3, 2020
But the real numbers will only start coming in much later Tuesday in the US (early Wednesday morning in India), starting at 6 pm ET, which 11:00 pm GMT Y 4:30 am at IST, India Standard Time.
TO 7 pm ET (midnight GMT, 5:30 am IST), an hour later, the polls close in Florida and more vote counts will begin to arrive from there and elsewhere on the East Coast.
TO 8 pm ET (1 a. M. GMT, 6:30 a.m. M., IST) the count will begin in Pennsylvania, a crucial state, though most expect final results to take much longer there due to the massive number of mail-in ballots up for grabs this time.
By 10 pm ET (3 a. M. GMT, 8:30 a. M. IST) Results will be broadcast from Texas, Michigan, Arizona, among the major transition states, and many others. In normal years, at this point it is beginning to become quite clear what the shape of the electoral college will look like, although of course this year may be considerably different.
By 11 pm ET (4 am GMT, 9:30 am IST) polls will close in the western states of California, Oregon and Washington, bringing us much closer to the time when races are generally called, although the Trump-Clinton race was called much later in the early hours of the morning, ET .
Beyond this, it is difficult to say what will happen if the results are not clear. The Trump campaign has indicated that it will seek to declare victory if it is ahead by the end of the night, even if votes are being counted across the country, in hopes of delegitimizing any subsequent numbers that go against the Republican list.
But if it ends up being as contentious, or if matters go to court as they did in 2000, then the end result could be a matter of days and weeks, not hours.
How to view / listen / follow the results
Although popular American cable channels such as CNN and MSNBC can be difficult to access from abroad, although a VPN can help, there are still many ways to follow the election results as they arrive.
The network’s news broadcasts will be available on YouTube, including NBC News, ABC News and PBS Newshour.
C-SPAN, the equivalent of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV in the US, will also provide you with results and victory or concession speeches.me.
For an international perspective, you can watch the live broadcast of Al Jazeera English. Or read the excellent live blog of the Guardian.
The New York TimesIn addition to its liveblog, it also offers an audio option. Your award-winning podcast, The newspaper, will cover the results as they are released.
And of course, if you want something a little more comical, watch the Comedy Central livestream. The daily show:
Indian-Americans and India
This election is of particular interest to Indians and American Indians for several reasons.
One, the winner will have to chart how to tackle an aggressive rising China, a challenge that has many potential consequences for India.
Two, an Indian-American is in the running for the first time, with Kamala Harris, whose mother immigrated to the United States from India in the 1950s, running as a vice presidential candidate for the Democrats. If his ticket wins, many will expect Harris to run for president as a Democratic candidate within four years.
Three, this election has seen the influence of the Indian-American community grow by leaps and bounds compared to previous decades, with greater amounts of money donated and greater scrutiny of their electoral options. How they ultimately vote will tell us a lot about the community and their political preferences.
For the background on all this, read our recent articles on Scroll Global, a section for Indians abroad:
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