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The US presidential election is just over a week away, but the intended winner may not be decided so quickly this year.
There are many reasons for this, including the increase in vote-by-mail ballots and the time it will take to count them.
So … when will we have an officially announced final winner?
We’ll see.
When do the results usually appear?
American citizens vote for a new president every four years. Election day this year is November 3, but millions of votes have already been cast in advance through the mail and in other ways.
After the polls close on Election Day, a prediction is generally made to decide which candidate, Republican or Democrat, has won in each state.
As voting night progresses, the media uses these predictions to calculate the overall result of the Electoral College vote.
The media then declares the outright winner of the presidency after the popular vote is counted, usually on election night or early the next morning.
As a reminder, the winner is not decided through popular vote, it is decided through the Electoral College. However, in most years, the candidate who wins the popular vote is elected president.
There have been four exceptions to this, the most recent in 2016 when Trump lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote.
To win the presidency, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes from the electors, more than half of the total.
The outcome decided by the media shortly after Election Day is still only an intended outcome.
Voters cast their actual votes in mid-December and the president officially takes office at the end of January of the following year.
However, in general, after the media predicts the winner of the Electoral College ballot, the losing candidate will concede the election before these official ballots.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton admitted the day after the election once the media declared that Trump had exceeded the Electoral College voting threshold.
In 2012, Mitt Romney conceded to Barack Obama in the early hours of the day after Election Day.
With neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump looking ready to quit the fight so quickly this year, in part due to the volume of ballots mailed, the process is likely to continue for a longer period than usual.
What is different this year?
Duke University political science professor John Aldrich said TheJournal.ie that “no one knows for sure” how the elections will unfold, but a number of key issues are different than in previous years.
An increase in vote-by-mail due in large part to the pandemic, Supreme Court cases, and the media calling for the vote too early could be a factor in deciding the winner this time.
“Each state handles elections in its own way and votes in its own way, and there are 50 different responses to try to address the pandemic and make voting easier and safer,” Aldrich said.
So we don’t know how they will develop because, first, they are completely new procedures, and second, they have been done more or less in the last minute and are still being changed.
As of Friday, more than 50 million people in the US had voted at the beginning of the election, according to a group that monitors voting.
Voters are casting their votes early to try to avoid crowded voting centers and long lines for fear of catching Covid-19.
Aldrich added that, at least in North Carolina, another problem driving the number of mail-in ballots is the “number of extremist groups saying they are going to do something on Election Day.”
“Here in North Carolina, we have a great African American community,” he said.
“One of the reasons they are voting by mail so much is that then they don’t have to go to the voting booth and face any possible harassment that may occur.”
“In the south, not recently, but in the old south, that was very common and so there is a memory of how horrible things can be on election day, and it’s best avoided if possible,” he said.
The early voting tally from the U.S. Elections Project, led by the University of Florida, said more than 35 million people have voted by mail and more than 15 million in person by leaving their ballots in designated mailboxes.
This already exceeds the 47 million votes cast at the beginning of the 2016 elections, with more than a week left.
Early voting rules vary by state, Aldrich said. This will be key in determining any delay in obtaining results.
“Various states [including North Carolina] they can count absentee and mail ballots and do the count before Election Day, so Election Day will be used primarily in counting their normal votes, ”he said.
“And we will be able to report, as we would in any normal election, but there are other places where mail-in ballots cannot be counted until at least five on Election Night.”
34 states cannot begin counting their mail-in ballots until Election Day. Aldrich said it will take “more than one night to count, it will take several days.”
This delay could have a significant impact on the overall predictions for the winner if swing states are affected.
Aldrich said there are concerns that this result could “change the Electoral College vote.”
“That’s when we find the really interesting problems,” he said.
In the 2000 presidential election, the battle between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W Bush boiled down to the outcome in one state: Florida.
The Republican-controlled state government declared Bush the winner with a tiny margin of votes. Gore’s side went to court for a count of millions of punch card ballots.
The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against a recount and handed the choice over to Bush.
Is the result likely to reach the Supreme Court this year?
Aldrich said it is possible that the Supreme Court could be a factor in deciding this choice.
“There is the precedence of the 2000 elections, in which the Supreme Court had to make the final decision on the Florida elections,” he said.
“We already know that Republicans in particular have challenged virtually every part of the electoral and electoral regulation that has been proposed, so they are ready to try to challenge things.
So we had to be prepared for many court cases, whether they will reach the Supreme Court is questionable but possible.
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However, he added that even if the cases go to the Supreme Court, on the outcome or other voting issues, the court may not accept the case.
“One of the options they have is to say that the Court of Appeals, the court right below them, got it right and … [they] You don’t have to decide this because it has already been decided correctly, ”he said.
He said this would be the preferred option for the majority due to the short time between November 3 and voters cast their votes.
“Electoral votes are supposed to be cast in December, so you have about a month to try to launch any challenge,” he said, adding that this could result in a “mad rush to the courtroom.”
What are the current predictions?
As of October 23, Biden is leading in a national poll with 52% of the vote.
Six states are considered crucial indecisive states in deciding the election: North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Based in North Carolina, Aldrich said he is “reasonably certain” that Biden will win.
“But there is enough reason for uncertainty to say that it is no better than a 60/40 probability, maybe two-thirds one-third,” he said.
There are many chances that it will turn out to be a Trump victory, but it is much more likely, in my opinion, that it will be a Biden victory.
How do you predict the winner on election night?
The media in the US compete to make the first call about the winner of the election, based on the publication of the state results.
“Most of the time, everything is fine and they do it well. But every now and then, and the biggest example was Florida in 2000, where he was called prematurely by George W Bush … then he was too close to call again, “Aldrich said.
“But people have high expectations that Bush has already won it, and that was the decisive state.”
Aldrich and other scholars in the field signed a proposal published in the opinion section of The Guardian earlier this month to try to ensure that the media does not call the states prematurely in case they alter the results.
He said that due to the delay in results, there is a chance that will happen this year.
“One of the disadvantages of the new media is that a significant number of them are politicized, so they will have political reasons to push them as well,” he added.
Does any of the candidates seem likely to give in?
Trump has repeatedly refused to say whether he would concede the post peacefully in the event of defeat in the November 3 presidential election.
He has suggested that massive election fraud involving the tens of millions of ballots mailed this year and early voting due to the coronavirus pandemic could prevent him from winning.
Biden has said he will respect the results “after all the ballots are counted.”
“That will be the end. And if it’s me, that’s fine. If it is not me, I will support the result, ”he said.
With AFP report
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