Due to a postal vote larger than ever, estimates released as of the day of the US presidential election will be largely incomplete.

Each of the camps involved could use it to push back as much as possible the prospect of defeat.

DECRYPTION

This is one of the most salient uncertainties of a poll that does not lack: will the results of the American presidential election be known as soon as the last closed polling stations, Tuesday evening November 3 (in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday for Europeans)?

In the morning, in France, will we know with certainty the face of the next tenant of the White House until 2024, or will we have to wait several hours, days, or even weeks before being certain that Donald Trump or Joe Biden won?

One of the reasons for this vagueness concerns the situation in the country itself: unlike France, where the overwhelming majority of polling stations are located in the same time zone, Californian polling stations close their doors at 8 p.m. in California ( local time, 5 a.m. in France), when those on the east coast have already been closed for three or four hours.

The estimates are therefore not national, but state by state, which makes it difficult to get an overview of the race for the 270 voters needed to win.

The upheaval of Covid-19

Then, the coronavirus epidemic severely disrupted the organization of the election this year.

While postal voting was previously reserved for certain categories of the population such as the sick or the elderly, many states have decided to relax these rules in order to avoid crowds at polling stations on November 3.

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Several problems have emerged: Forecasts show around 80 million postal votes this year, double what they represented in 2016. At the same time, the US Postal Service has seen significant budget cuts .

This therefore threatens the efficient and rapid processing of these tens of millions of votes, which could logically tip the scales in favor of one of the two candidates.

It also takes more time to count postal votes than physical votes, with a signature to verify.

Different rules in different states

Then, postal votes are taken into account differently in different states.

In the key state of Florida, for example, ballots will be counted before election day, November 3.

This is not the case in other states, such as Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, where the correspondence votes are counted after the closing of the polls.

In California, voters can even cast their vote until November 3, regardless of their ballot arriving on election day.

Ultimately, it takes more than a month to arrive at the final vote count. 

On election night, observers of US policy and the general public will therefore have to make do with estimates.

Will they be sufficient to ensure the victory of one side over the other?

This is not sure, especially if the gap in voters is small between each camp.

Two self-proclaimed winners?

We could therefore end up with a situation where both candidates claim to have won the election.

It is therefore possible that you will receive a notification from Europe 1 on Wednesday morning, indicating that "Joe Biden and Donald Trump declare themselves the winners" of this election.

In 2016, the results were announced around 9:30 a.m. French time, when Wisconsin had brought all of its voters to the Republican candidate.

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Finally, nothing says that Donald Trump or Joe Biden concedes his defeat on the evening of November 3, or even during the day of Wednesday November 4.

If he said he fully accepted the result of the ballot, Joe Biden insisted on the need to "count every vote".

Accusing the postal voting system of promoting "fraud", Donald Trump wants the results to be announced on election night, even if it means giving credit to largely provisional results.

He also refused to guarantee a peaceful transition of power in the event of defeat.

Sign that many twists and turns should occur before the inauguration of the next president, scheduled for Wednesday, January 20, 2021.