If there is voting in the USA, the result will not be known until early the next day, according to German time.
It may take a long time again for the 2020 US election.
When Donald Trump became president, the
result
was not known until 8:30 a.m. German time
.
State schedules have a major impact on when there will be a result in the
2020 US election
.
The
swing states
, in which the election results can be tight, are
unpredictable
.
Washington - On November
3rd,
the Americans elect their next president.
By the time the result is certain, it will be
November 4th
in Germany for a long time
.
We show the schedule according to which
projections
and
interim
results can be expected.
When will the first projections and results for the 2020 US election be available?
In contrast to elections in Germany, there is no uniform time in the USA at which the polling stations close.
The "
polling places
", as they are called there, have
different opening times
not only due to the different
time zones
in the
USA
.
The
local times
at which the polling stations close also differ.
When will the first results of the presidential election be available after German time?
Initial indications of the outcome of the 2020 US election are therefore only gradually
possible
for individual
states
.
In the course of election night, the complete picture for the whole country emerges.
In the US state of Florida,
polling stations
close
at 7 p.m.
The time zone is closest to the German one, so the results are counted from 1 a.m. our time.
Alaska lets vote until 9 p.m. and belongs to one of us with the most distant time zones.
The ballot boxes are not counted
until 7 a.m.
German time
.
When Donald Trump won the election against Hillary Clinton, the result was only known around 8:30 a.m. German time.
Barack Obama secured his second term at 5.15 a.m.
Check out this post on Instagram
There's too much at stake for anyone to sit this election out.
We need to learn from 2016 and not let history repeat itself.
Make your voice heard.
Make your plan to vote now.
A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Oct 10, 2020 at 2:34 am PDT
Projections provide information on the outcome of the 2020 US election
As a rule, voters in the US do not have to
count
wait of the last state.
The next
US president
can be determined long in advance.
The result of the individual states is always important, since the US presidential
elections
are based
on the system of
electoral men and women
.
Each state is allowed to determine a fixed number of voters for the "Electoral College" - the number of which will again depend on the size of the state in the 2020 US election.
Strictly speaking, only the assembly of electors finally elects the president.
In almost every state, the candidate with the most votes wins all of that state's electorate.
For some states it is largely clear whether the Republican or Democratic candidate will win the majority.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden can therefore largely work out the number of safe electors with which they will start the election evening.
The decisive factor is rather the “swing states”, which cannot be clearly assigned to a political trend.
There elections in the USA are won and lost.
Therefore, on
election night, a
lot revolves around the question: When will the next result of a swing state come?
The magic number for the majority is
270 electoral votes
.
When do projections become results?
Since every US state is only about the electors, the exact result is not directly decisive.
Above all, there has to be a majority for one of the candidates.
Whether the lead is large or small does not matter as long as the electors are distributed.
There will also be
voter surveys
at the polling stations
for the US election in 2020
, which are known as "
exit polls
".
The extrapolations based on this can show a clear victory for a candidate long before the count is complete.
In such a case, the US media already rate the state as the victorious candidate.
It looks different when the majority is too tight for something to be decided.
"Too close to call" is what is called in the USA and in the statistics of the election night no candidate is initially assigned the number of electors.
When will the official result of the 2020 US election be available?
In the last election in 2016, it took over a month for the last votes to be officially counted.
This time, too, there may be some
delays
that at least
move
the
time of
the result back.
Due to the
corona pandemic
, which has also hit the USA, there are likely to be many more
postal voters
than before.
The "
early voting
" has become popular due to the corona risk.
In the USA, the counting of postal votes sometimes takes much longer than in Germany.
It is therefore difficult to predict when the outcome of the 2020 US election will be certain.
If the projections in important swing states are very tight, the presidential election could only come after days of waiting for its result.
When will the candidates agree on the result on election evening?
In fact, nothing is certain until all of the official election results are announced.
But that does not prevent a clearly victorious candidate from declaring himself the next US president before the final results.
Depending on the course of the election evening, very clear projections may be sufficient.
However, it is customary in
Washington
for candidates to telephone to agree that the election has been decided.
The content of this private phone call is the so-called "
concession
".
What is meant is that the defeated candidate admits his defeat.
On the night of November 3, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will also have this conversation.
(rm)
