It could take weeks for the 2024 Presidential Election to be decided. Because of time zone differences (East Coast, Central, Mountain, West Coast, and Far West), State polling places will close throughout the evening. With several races considered "too close to call", manual vote counting will be required. Further, close State votes will cause candidates to pursue law suits. Important: just because manual counts and/or re-counts are performed, it is incredibly unlikely that fraud is involved (i.e. dead people, ineligible voters, illegal immigrants, Trump / MAGA conspiracy theories, unforeseen circumstances, etc.)
To elect the President, the United States still uses the antiquated Electoral College system which allocates vote counts based upon each State's population. All but 2 States, Maine and Nebraska, allocates their electoral votes as "winner take all". Maine and Nebraska allocate their electoral votes based on congressional district results.
If the Presidential election were based on popular vote, it would be relatively easy to predict the results. The total votes cast within the coastal States would overwhelm the total votes cast within the rest of the States.
According to a CBS News online article, the Electoral College was created as a compromise during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Some of the Constitutional Convention attendees felt that non-politicians without knowledge of candidate competency or understanding of a candidate's "platforms" should not elect the President. It was also felt that states with large populations would have a major advantage if the Presidential election was driven by a popular vote. Finally, almost 40% of the Southern population at the time were slaves. Thanks to the "Three-Fifths Compromise", Southern states were able to count slaves as "Three-fifths" of the slave population as part of the census used to determine the representation in the Electoral College. (CBS News / Politics. "Why do we have the Electoral College? The history of and arguments against the institution"; Emily Mae Czachor, Nov. 5, 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-electoral-college-2024/)
After election day, the next date to monitor is December 11, 2024, when each state's appointed executive (usually the Governor) signs the "certificates of ascertainment" formally assigning the state's electors to the winning candidate.(time.com / politics / 2024 elections. "The 9 Dates That Matter After Election Day". By: Brian Bennett. Nov. 2, 2024. https://time.com/7171517/electoral-college-dates-inauguration/)
We saw in 2020 that Donald Trump is incredibly litigious and will go to court at the slightest inconvenience. Trump filed over 60 law suits in 2020. Also recall, in 2020, Trump repeatedly voiced his opinion that any vote that he did not win was rigged. He has done the same this year.
While Kamala Harris' campaign has never said they would use the courts to resolve a close vote, I would think that this would be an option.
According to most news sites, there are 7 "toss up" or "purple" states with 93 total Electoral College votes: Arizona (11 electoral votes), Georgia (16), Michigan (15), Nevada (6), North Carolina (16), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10). Presidential races are projected to be within thousands of votes in each of these states. Therefore, it is very possible that Democrat and/or Republican Presidential Campaigns could use legal means to decide the winner of State Electoral College votes. (Vote totals from usnews.com. "7 States That Could Sway the 2024 Presidential Election". Elliott Davis, Jr.. Oct. 2, 2024. https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/7-swing-states-that-could-decide-the-2024-presidential-election)
Because several Presidential races are too close to call, manual counts, re-counts, and law suits will slow the process of accurately counting votes and determining the winner of the 2024 Presidential election. The process could continue until mid-December.
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