Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have been on the road for months, stumping for support from voters as they run for president.
They’ve focused most of their energy on a handful of battleground swing states are expected to determine the next president.
The presidential election is not determined by the popular vote, but rather by the Electoral College.
Each state gets a certain number of electoral votes based on their population. In most states, the winner of the popular vote in the state gets all of the state’s electors.
There are 538 electoral votes up for grabs, and a candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.
The seven battleground states have 93 electoral votes. Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, making it a popular campaign destination. In just the last two weeks, the candidates have made more than 20 visits to the Keystone State.
Every state has its own rules for counting ballots.
In Pennsylvania, the state law says officials cannot count any mail-in ballots before Tuesday morning.
Some states, like Florida, have laws that prioritize getting results out as soon as possible. Florida is typically one of the first states to release results on election night, while California is typically among the last states to count all the votes.
In 2020, almost a third of the state’s ballots were tallied after Election Day.
States often release early returns before all votes have been counted, but these are not always reflective of the final election results.
It may take some time before we know who won. In 2016, Donald Trump was not declared the winner until the morning after the election. In 2020, the race was even closer. It took four days to determine that Joe Biden was the winner.
