‘This year Americans – and the rest of the world – may have to wait a few days, perhaps three or four, if the results in the battleground states are tight.’
TOMORROW, Americans officially mark Election Day 2024 – although in many states, early voting was allowed a couple of weeks earlier. It will be the day that history will be made, even if the results may not be known for days. In the year 2000, for example, Election Day fell on November 7 (by law, the Tuesday after the first Monday of November; but the election was so tight it needed the US Supreme Court to decide who won Florida. And it was only on Dec 13, more than a month later, that Vice President Al Gore conceded to Republican candidate George W. Bush, bowing to the ruling of the Supreme Court.
Also, officially, the winner is proclaimed by Congress in early January, with the Vice President presiding. This is the same proceeding that then-President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, had hoped to “inspire” to declare him and not rival Joe Biden. But unofficially, Americans (and the world) “know” who the winner is on Election Day. In the case of an overwhelming landslide, everyone “knows” who won even long before Election Day is over in the westernmost parts of the US. Remember, the continental US spans six time zones, then you have Alaska and Hawaii. So voters could still be trooping to the polls in the west and yet media outlets are already calling the race over. This has happened before, such as in the 1984 Ronald Reagan landslide over challenger Walter Mondale. Reagan, with 59% of the vote, won every state except one – Mondale’s own Minnesota.
People slept early that day.
This year Americans – and the rest of the world – may have to wait a few days, perhaps three or four, if the results in the battleground states are tight. On the other hand, US news networks that are in the practice of “calling” a state as won by a certain candidate do this by watching bellwether counties and trends and have exit polls as another guide. For example: if by tradition a Democrat wins in a certain county or city by 30% (these are usually the urban areas) which is enough to offset the Republican votes from the rural areas, any trend showing a higher Democrat percentage can lead a network to “call” that state as having been “won” by the Democrat. Similarly, if the Democrat is polling less than the usual 30%, then the network could call the state for the Republican.
In every state, there are several bellwether counties used by political observers and analysts in this way. They also use exit polls to see how many women are voting and who for, how many men, how many minorities, etc. Again, based on previous trends, these can be used as a basis for predicting the outcome.
I’m excited, particularly because I will be observing the elections firsthand. I have been doing these for many years, but the last was in 2016 when I woke up on Election Day confident that Hillary would win by a landslide. She didn’t. Four years later I didn’t fly to the US due to the COVID pandemic, and so now I am back with a vengeance.
There’s a lot for the world to learn from how Americans breathe life into democratic processes, especially in the electoral process. But I think there’s a lot that Americans can learn from the rest of the world, too.
Like preferring to just rely on actual results based on the one man, one vote principle?
Or (finally) breaking the highest glass ceiling for women?
Tomorrow, I will be witnessing history.
