This November 5, the whole world will have its eyes fixed on the United States, where some 244 million Americans are called to go to the polls. Who, Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump, will take over the Oval Office and succeed President Joe Biden? If this question will remain unanswered until the announcement of the final results in view of the extremely close polls, others have already found their answer.
How does the American electoral system work? When will the winner be announced? Why are there early votes? L’Express looks back on the organization of this day, which promises to be historic.
How is the American presidential election going?
Unlike France, the President of the United States has been elected every four years by indirect universal suffrage in one round since 1787. And more precisely by 538 electors who make up the electoral college. This Tuesday, November 5, American voters will therefore not vote directly for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump but for these representatives of the Democratic or Republican party, who will themselves elect the president and vice-president during a vote taking place on the 17th. next December. To be elected 47th President of the United States, the winner will have to obtain the votes of half of these electors distributed in each of the States, i.e. 270 of them. A unique system of its kind.
And to make things more complex, each state does not have the same number of electors. This quantity is determined by the representation of each state in Congress, which brings together the two parliamentary chambers. In total, the votes of 535 members are at stake, those of 100 senators (two per state) and 435 representatives distributed according to the population of the states. Added to this are three major electors for the federal capital of Washington which benefits from a specific status, raising the electoral college to 538 members.
If the states of Maine and Nebraska stand apart, the rest follow the so-called “winner-takes-all” system. In other words, all of the state’s votes go to the winning candidate, regardless of their margin of victory. It is therefore possible that the future president of the United States will obtain fewer votes across the country than his rival, as was previously the case in 2016, during Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
Which will be the first and last states to vote?
To follow election night from France, you will have to get up early, or rather, go to bed (very) late. Polling stations will open between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time, starting with those on the East Coast, and will close between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. depending on the state. Indiana and Kentucky could be the first to report their results by closing their polling station doors first. Georgia and Florida are then expected to close voting at 1 a.m. PT. If Florida should offer the vote of its electors to Donald Trump, the state of Georgia is much more uncertain. After voting Republican for 30 years, Georgia switched to the Democratic side in the 2020 election.
30 minutes later, at 1:30 a.m., North Carolina will close its polls, followed by Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas at 2 a.m. Wisconsin and Arizona will do the same at 3 a.m., while Nevada will close its offices at 4 a.m. Finally, California, a Democratic state since 1992, will close the election at 5 a.m. In total, 50 states accompanied by the federal capital of Washington will vote this November 5.
Why have millions of voters already gone to the polls?
This is one of the countless peculiarities of the American electoral system. Since September 6, when the first ballots were sent out in North Carolina, more than 78 million Americans have voted in advance. An arrangement designed to improve electoral participation, by allowing people unable to go to the polls on November 5 to vote, while reducing crowds on election day. Thus, in the United States, the date of the presidential election does not correspond to the day on which the polling stations open, but to their closing.
Some voters, who cannot go there, have voted by mail. To do this, nothing could be simpler: the citizen receives the bulletin at home and returns it by post once completed, or brings it by hand to a dedicated location. The ballot will then be counted upon receipt or at the end of the election, according to the electoral law in force in the State concerned. In 2020, Donald Trump accused this electoral system of encouraging fraud and ballot stuffing. An accusation that he never managed to prove, despite the difficult traceability of postal votes.
When will the results be communicated?
It all depends on the States. But be careful, it is not certain that the final results will be revealed on November 5. During the 2020 US presidential election, 24 hours after the polls closed, no winner had yet been chosen. Joe Biden then had only 262 electors out of the 270 required to win the race for the White House. It was only 87 hours after the polls closed, more than three days later, that Pennsylvania communicated its results, allowing the Associated Press to proclaim Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election. The scores for the states of Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska took between 7 and 16 days to be made public. At issue: many early ballots had to be counted due to Covid-19.
Although the winner may not be announced on November 5, partial results should, however, be known shortly after the polling stations close, around 11 p.m. on the East coast, or 5 a.m. in Paris. Enough to keep those most involved awake.