The United States welcomes Presidential Election Day on Tuesday (November 5) local time. For viewers in Australia, state ballot box closing times will begin at 9am EDT on Wednesday (November 6) (East Coast states) and end at 4pm (Alaska and Hawaii).
Holding elections on the second Tuesday in November has been an American tradition for more than 100 years. However, people can vote early, and the early voting time varies from state to state. Minnesota can vote 46 days in advance, while people in Alabama only have one day to vote in advance.
As of last Friday, more than 70 million Americans had voted early, and those who had not voted could choose to vote that day.
On Election Day, experts will continue to provide analysis of voting in seven swing states. This year’s swing states include Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
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Important moments on election day
Harris and Trump. (Reuters: Evelyn Hockstein and Brendan McDermid)
On Wednesday, the ballot box closing times (AEDT) in seven battleground states were,
- 11 a.m.: Georgia. Early voting results will be announced at 12:00.
- 11:30 a.m.: North Carolina. North Carolina will tally early voting results first.
- 12 noon: Most of Pennsylvania and Michigan. Pennsylvania will count Election Day votes first.
- 1 p.m.: Voting will close in small parts of Wisconsin, Arizona and Michigan. Wisconsin will release its Election Day ballots first, and Arizona will release its early announcement an hour after polling stations close.
- 2 p.m.: Polls close in Nevada. Early voting ballots are counted first but are not immediately released.
Voting will close at polling stations in western Alaska by 5 p.m., but we may know the election results as early as then.
ABC Chinese will broadcast the US presidential election and real-time vote counting results for you from 10am to 10pm today, Wednesday, Eastern Time, so stay tuned.
The Electoral College: Why Not One Person, One Vote for President?
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Although the Electoral College system is often criticized, the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the outcome of the presidential election is not directly determined by one person and one vote nationwide but by a majority of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College consists of 538 people, and a candidate needs to win a majority of these electors – at least 270 votes – to win the election.
A map of the United States filled with hexagons, each representing an Electoral College vote.
Each hexagon on the map represents an Electoral College vote, and each state’s vote count (number of seats in the House plus number of seats in the Senate) roughly reflects population figures.
The number of Senate seats is 2 regardless of the size of the state. Therefore, a state can have at least three electors—two electors equal to its Senate seats and at least one elector equal to its House of Representatives seats.
California has the most Electoral College votes, 54, while the state with the fewest has only 3.
This map shows the distribution of the 538 electors across the United States, with each elector represented by a hexagon.
Before Election Day, each political party nominates a set of electors in each state. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, most states use a winner-take-all rule, in which the candidate who receives the majority of the popular vote in that state wins all of that state’s electoral votes.
When will the results be announced?
Kamala Harris’ blue-state woes could cost her election
In Australia, we are expected to see the election results on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 6.
After polls close in each state, officials will begin counting votes and the results will be known within hours.
In the United States, most popular votes should be counted on election night.
But because states have different rules about how votes are counted and reported, some areas may take longer.
Even if a state is counting votes quickly, if the vote count is close, it could be days before we see official results.
While the Electoral College is responsible for formally voting on who will become president, we will likely see the predicted winner on voting day.
If the results are close, it could take several more days to resolve the Electoral College issue.
With the exception of two states that use a proportional system, the winner of the statewide count will receive all of the state’s electoral votes, and a presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election.
The Electoral College won’t formally vote on the next president until mid-December, but we’ll know the results much earlier.
Some states, including the populous California and New York, are taking weeks to count all the votes. So we won’t know the national popular vote total until early December.
The president-elect will be sworn in on January 20, 2025.
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