Politicians and citizens around the world are holding their breath to see who will win Tuesday’s US presidential election. Will this be a second term for Republican Donald Trump? Or victory for Democrat Kamala Harris, who would be the first female POTUS, and only the second person of color?

Unlike the UK, where a prime minister can be kicked out of Downing Street overnight after a general election, there will be a transition period. The next president will not take office until Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025.

But when will we know who the next president will be? Recent precedent suggests that we may not find out the night after the polls close, but a few days or even weeks later – especially if the result looks close this time around, as has been widely predicted .

Recent delays – and what was happening

In 2000, Election Day was November 7, but George W. Bush did not become president-elect until December 13. It was at this point that his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, conceded his decision after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned, by 5 votes to 4, the decision of the Supreme Court of Florida, which had decided to interrupt the vote recount in what was then a swing state.

We’ll never know who actually got the most votes in the Sunshine State — there were probably a few hundred votes.

It is common knowledge that Florida gave Bush victory in the Electoral College by 271 votes to 266, although Gore received half a million more votes than him nationally.

In the last election in 2020, it wasn’t until the Saturday after Tuesday’s vote, four days later, that I was able to “call” Joe Biden’s election on Sky News, as well as other major information networks.

Donald Trump has always insisted that he won. His supporters have launched multiple legal challenges to try to overturn the results in swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. They failed, but on January 6, 2021, a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in order to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from officially certifying the result as a Biden victory.

Despite these examples from recent years, in modern American elections the winner is most often known within a few hours of counting beginning.

By convention, the result is accepted by all as soon as one of the two candidates admits defeat and when the Associated Press (AP), the 170-year-old impartial American news agency, “designates a winner”.

AP will announce a total of 5,000 election results next week. He estimates there could be evidence of a clear presidential winner about seven hours after counting begins on the East Coast – around 1 a.m. in Washington DC and 6 a.m. in London on Wednesday, November 6. This will only work if Harris or Trump are comfortably ahead in election results across the country.

If it appears that Trump has won outright, we can expect Kamala Harris to concede in the early hours, just like Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Mrs. Clinton, shocked, called an equally surprised Trump to congratulate him, then delivered a formal concession speech to his supporters. a few hours later.

Close race could end in ‘contentious election’

Trump said this time, “I want a landslide.” He also promised: “If I lose and it’s free and fair, I will absolutely accept the results.” We’ll see. He did not concede a goal in 2020 and still insists, wrongly, that he won then. Surprisingly, a majority of Republican voters say they agree with him.

All the polls suggest this will be a very close election. If Trump appears to lose narrowly because one or two swing states are against him, he will do everything he can to sow distrust, to delay declaring Harris the winner, and, ultimately perhaps, to overturn his defeat at the polls.

That’s why insiders call it “litigation election.” Both sides are assembling huge legal teams ready to fight. The Trump campaign is recalling conservative lawyers who represented him in 2020. It says it has 230,000 volunteers on standby in swing states.

To lead her legal team, Harris recruited Dana Remus, a former White House counsel, and Marc Elias, a litigation lawyer who has won cases, opening the door for Democrats to have their own ” “black money” for legal cases aimed at countering money. pro-Trump billionaires like Elon Musk.

Of course, if Harris is narrowly defeated and Democrats suspect foul play, Democrats could also challenge some of the results. Unlike Republicans, however, they have not openly discussed this backdoor victory tactic.

Trump and his supporters are setting the stage to distrust this year’s outcome. They are already denouncing “cheating” and “electoral fraud” during early voting. They claim in advance that it is a “rigged election” against them.

More than 200 lawsuits have been filed regarding voter ID, mail-in voting, voting machines, foreign interference and intimidation.

Voters must be U.S. citizens. This year, complaints from Trump supporters focus on allegations that illegal immigrants are able to vote.

The year 2020 was a chaotic, unscripted trial period that revealed the tactics that could be used to challenge another Trump defeat. The Republicans are better organized this time.

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The obstacles between the election and the nomination

There are options to cancel or block the process at each stage in the weeks leading up to the inauguration.

Each state has until December 11 to certify the results. To stop this, it would be possible to either successfully allege that the vote was not conducted properly or that the ballots were cast by people who were not entitled to vote. But none of Trump’s complaints about voting irregularity were sustained in 2020.

Local election commissions could also refuse to certify the results. This was once unheard of in America, but it has happened more than twenty times in eight states since 2020.

However, federal law was reformed so that only state governors have final authority to certify, unless a court rules otherwise, with Congress obligated to consider their certifications conclusive. So far, even Republican governors have carried out certification.

Learn more:
Six Paths to Power – and Why One State Matters Most
The real Harris: her powerful ex and clash with the police
Is Biden’s gaffe as bad as Clinton’s 2016 mistake?

Technically, the votes cast by the electorate are important because they determine, state by state, who makes up the electoral college that “elects” the president. It has 538 members – so a candidate needs 270 to win. All but two states allocate their electors on a winner-take-all basis, to the candidate who receives the most votes in their state.

If none of the candidates reach the 270 mark and the Electoral College as a whole cannot complete the certification, the result of the general election is void. The House of Representatives elects the president in a so-called contingent election.

This is done on the basis of one vote per state. Republicans now control more state delegations and likely will after next week’s election. In contingent elections, the 100-member U.S. Senate elects the vice president, who can be from the other party.

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Then comes the fateful date of January 6, when the vice president and the newly elected Congress meet to certify the new president. Assuming, for example, that Harris avoided a contingent election, it is still possible that a Republican-majority Congress would refuse to certify her victory, even though, as the incumbent vice president, she would occupy the presidency. That’s likely what Trump was referring to at his rally at Madison Square Garden when he said that he and Mike Johnson, the Republican president, had “a secret… I’ll tell you what it is once the race is over.

If the election result is contested, legal action at all levels is a certainty.

If the argument reaches the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court, all indications are that Trump will receive a favorable hearing; he named three of its members.

In the meantime, if uncertainty over the outcome continues, there is a risk of widespread civil unrest.

This is the best reason to hope that the US presidential election will be settled overnight or very soon after.