WASHINGTON: On November 05, tens of millions of voters will step into ballot booths across the United States.
But the results of the election – including whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be the next president – will not be official until votes are counted and verified, which could take days to fully complete.
In the battleground states expected to decide the election’s winner, the process will be highly scrutinized.
Trump is already questioning the trustworthiness of many of their voting processes and in 2020 he challenged the results of many of their votes in court.
The first polls will begin closing at 18:00 EST (23:00 BST) on Tuesday, but counting votes will extend far beyond then.
In most cases, it can take weeks to reach an official tally, partly because of state rules.
For example, in two battleground states – Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – election workers are not allowed to begin processing mailed-in ballots until election day. That is expected to slow the counting greatly.
It’s important to note that news organisations use unofficial results and projections when they announce winners on election night or the following days, instead of waiting for the final and official count.
Counting, too, varies from location to location and depends on equipment used.
Some counties “feed” ballots into optical scanners, while others may use touch-screen systems or ballot-marking devices to record votes.
The scanners are the most common. They tabulate results, which are then manually recounted and double-checked by hand.
Results are, in turn, shared with electoral officials, the parties and eventually with the public.
The counting can be slowed down by disruptions, legal challenges or complications around provisional ballots.
As of 1 November, there were 203 voting and election cases pending in 40 states, according to Marc Elias, a Democratic election lawyer who filed many of the responses to Trump’s 2020 lawsuits.
They are concentrated in the battleground states of Georgia, which has 25 legal challenges, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Arizona, according to his count.
Provisional ballots are given to voters when it is unclear whether they are eligible to cast ballots. This could happen, for example, if a person cannot be found in rolls of registered voters.
Ballots can also be challenged by election workers or – in some states – by poll watchers. Once challenged, ballots must be reviewed by election supervisors and made available to state canvass boards before being included, or stricken, from the official final tally.
Each state has its own procedure for recounts and what can trigger them.
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