Understanding the Announcement Timeline for U.S. Election Result

It's highly unpredictable that the winner of the presidential election will be known on election night, as polls indicate that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are almost neck-and-neck. The likelihood of the outcome swinging on a few key swing states is considerable. This can totally depend on how close the final results turn out to be. In 4 pivotal states – Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – the procedures for absentee balloting can extend the counting process by long days. If Harris manages to secure decisive victories in the other swing states, she can be probably declared as the winner. Any different outcome will require further time to determine.

News agencies announce a winner but do not finalize the results; that falls to election officials in charge of vote counting and result certification, which can take many more days or even weeks post-election. These organizations announce a winner only when it becomes crystal clear from the information provided by election offices that the vote count mathematically confirms a winner.

“Our criteria is total certainty,” elaborated David Scott, who leads the news strategy and operations at the Associated Press. “We won’t declare a victor until we are completely assured that the candidates trailing cannot catch up.”

The Guardian is aligning with the Associated Press in its election calling practices. Will we see results faster or slower than back in 2020? That totally depends on the vote margins in each state. According to Protect Democracy, a non-partisan organization, we can usually expect quicker results than in 2020 if the margin in a state exceeds 0.5%. They base this assertion on the fact that there will be significantly fewer mail-in ballots compared to 2020, allowing states to count the votes more quickly.

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