When will we know the election results?

When will we find out who the next president is?

Will we find out later tonight? Tomorrow morning? Or maybe later in the week?

In 2020, Joe Biden appeared to be on track for a win, but it wasn't until Saturday, four days after the election, that The Associated Press and other media outlets officially announced his victory.

Feeling uncertain for a few days can be anxiety-inducing, but it doesn't imply that something is amiss.

Amy Sherman from PolitiFact explains, "It's completely normal not to have all the election results counted on the night of the election. Here’s the reason behind it."

Patrick Marley and Amy Gardner from The Washington Post provide a useful summary of what the schedule might entail this week.

Ultimately, it will probably hinge on the swing states. Each state has its own methods for counting votes, whether they're cast on the same day, through mail, early, or via absentee ballots. Let’s take a closer look at these processes.

Everything mentioned here is, of course, likely to change.

Ultimately, similar to what happened in 2020, it might take a few days for us to find out the winner. This doesn't even consider the possibility of recounts or legal disputes.

According to Nathaniel Rakich and Amina Brown from FiveThirtyEight, “Election Day falls on Tuesday, Nov. 5 — however, this doesn’t guarantee that we will know the election results then. Each election sees an increasing number of Americans voting by mail, and this method takes longer to tally compared to in-person votes due to the need for opening and verifying the ballots. As a result, learning who won on election night might become a thing of the past.”

The 538 article examines each state, detailing when the polls shut down and how the results will be announced.

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