US elections 2024: when will we know the result?

For us voting in Aotearoa, voting will begin overnight New Zealand time on the evening of 5 November and close to finalize the state in the early evening of Wednesday 6 November.

Unlike New Zealand, election day is held during the working week, always on the first Tuesday in November. Federal law does not require people to take time off to vote, although many states allow people to take time off.

Here are the start times for polls to close in each of the 50 states. Some survey times may vary slightly depending on local time zones. Daylight Saving Time in the US ends on November 3rd, so the time difference may not be accurate until then.

6:00 pm EST/12:00 pm NZT, November 6

Partial closures in Indiana, Kentucky

7:00 pm EST/1:00 pm NZ time

Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia.

7:30 pm EST/1:30 pm NZ time

North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia

8:00 pm EST/2:00 pm NZ time

Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia (Washington), Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas

8:30 pm EST/2:30 pm NZ time

Arkansas

21:00 EST/15:00 NZ time

Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Wisconsin, Wyoming

10:00 pm EST/4:00 pm NZ time

Montana, Nevada, Utah, Idaho

11:00 pm EST/5:00 pm NZ time

California, Oregon, Washington State

12:00 pm EST/6:00 pm NZ time

Hawaii, part of Alaska

1:00 am EST/7:00 pm NZ time

Rest of Alaska

Some states will have winners announced almost instantly due to exit polls conducted by organizations like the Associated Press, while others may take a while to tally the results.

About 66% of eligible U.S. voters, or 158 million people, turned out in 2020, the highest level in decades.

What can delay results?

This year’s race has already seen an unprecedented number of legal challenges, such as in Georgia, where courts are squabbling over a Republican-led lawsuit that would require poll workers to count ballots by hand. human rights groups warned it could cause chaos.

Other last-minute legal actions could delay results in some states on election night. There are also concerns about possible violence at polling stations due to the extremely heated rhetoric and conspiracy theories that have been circulating.

Don’t people already vote?

Yes. Early voting has become much more popular in America since the Covid-19 pandemic, with many states seeing record turnout this year.

Almost every state allows early voting, although some require a valid reason to vote by mail.

Absentee voting for U.S. residents living abroad or military members has been in place for some time, and sometimes additional time is required to accommodate final results.

Which major states are worth paying attention to?

The seven swing states that could decide this year’s election due to the vagaries of the Electoral College are Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan. All but two of them – Arizona and Nevada – are on the eastern side of the US, meaning we may know most of their results sooner.

A huge number of the most populous states are virtually guaranteed to support one candidate or another: California and New York are certain to go for Harris, while Texas and Florida are likely for Trump. It is those at the turning point who will decide the outcome of the election.

So when do we usually find out the winner?

It often happens that the winner of a presidential race is not named on election night. Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was not officially declared until November 7th – four days after the November 3rd vote.

Sometimes the winner is clear early, as when Republican John McCain conceded in 2008 on Election Day just before 11 pm in the eastern US, before polls closed in the final few states. On the other hand, in 2000, the tense battle between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush was not settled by the US Supreme Court until December 12th.

If there is a swing in favor of one candidate or the other – say if Trump or Harris wins east coast states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia – it is possible that the picture will become clearer by NZT evening on November 6th.

But for now, anyone who says they know exactly when America’s next president will be chosen is walking in the dark.