How Presidential Elections Are Called

We've all been there: up way past our regular bedtimes, munching on what's left of our long-cold election night pizza and wondering if we can stay awake long enough to find out who the next president of the United States will be.

Some years we make it. Other times, like in 2020, we wake up on the couch the next morning to find out that everything is still up in the air.

We're probably in for a long wait this time around, too. Experts point to the neck-and-neck race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, as well as recent changes in state laws that will make it take longer to count votes in certain battleground states. In fact, it could be days, or even longer, before we know for sure who won.

And that's OK. Delays in votes being counted or a winner being called in a particular state are not indications of voter fraud or anything gone wrong with the elections system, said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. 

"It's very important that voters understand that it's normal and proper that those votes are coming in," said Weiser during an October press briefing. "So that they're resilient to whatever inevitable conspiracy theories or efforts that anyone makes on either side to delegitimize the election count process."

But when are elections actually called and who is in charge of calling them? Here's a look at the process and when you can expect to know for sure who the next president will be.

No, the media doesn't actually declare the winner

Even when a victor is declared and the opponent concedes, that's only part of the equation. Even in an apparent landslide, the results announced then aren't official and final.

The numbers you see on TV news infographics are usually based on unofficial results and media projections. They can and will change as actual votes continue to be counted.

Many in the media rely on vote totals reported by the Associated Press, which has called every presidential race dating back to the election of Zachary Taylor in 1848. As the results come in, the AP will carefully analyze the latest available vote tallies and a variety of other election data. Once it can determine that the trailing candidate can't catch up, it will declare a winner. Usually, this happens well before all of the votes are in.

But the AP also could declare that a race is "too close to call" if the results are so close that there's no clear winner even once all ballots --  except for provisional and late-arriving absentee ballots -- have been counted.

Regardless, these aren't official results. Those will come from government officials and much later than election night.

Counting the votes

Even under the best of circumstances, vote counting takes time. Election officials will count and process each eligible ballot in a process known as canvassing. That includes mail and absentee ballots, provisional ballots and ballots from military and overseas voters.

Mail ballots, in particular, can take longer to process depending on the state. They need to be verified, sorted and prepared for counting. And in some states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, election officials can't start processing mail ballots until Election Day.

Results in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin might be delayed because officials there must wait until Election Day to start counting mail ballots.

After all of the votes are in, election officials will check their count by conducting audits and, especially if the race is particularly close, recounts. Both of these processes are a normal part of elections, not an indication of fraud or other problems, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director for Verified Voting, which promotes the responsible use of technology in elections.

Once in a blue moon, a post-election audit will turn up an issue that should have been addressed earlier in the process, but mostly they serve as a "sanity check," Lindeman said.

"It's just to demonstrate that, yep, the machines did what they were supposed to do and the results are trustworthy," he said.

Certifying the vote

After the votes are checked, the certification process can begin. It confirms that all of the ballots have been counted and that the election has concluded. Depending on the state, officials have between nine days to a month to get this done, according to Verified Voting.

Presidential election results are typically certified before the Safe Harbor Deadline, which is the deadline for states to choose their electors for the Electoral College. This year that deadline is Dec. 11.

Electors will meet in their states on Dec. 17. If a state hasn't certified its results by then, its votes could technically be excluded from the Electoral College count, though that would likely prompt a court fight, Weiser said. 

"Those are very important deadlines and any kind of mischief designed to delay certification could bump up against those deadlines," she said, adding that while there aren't any legitimate reasons for a county or state to refuse to certify results, it doesn't mean one won't try.

Electoral votes must be received by the President of the Senate no later than the fourth Wednesday in December, which this year falls on Christmas Day. Congress will meet in a joint session on Jan. 6 and the vice president will announce the results of the Electoral College vote and then declare who has been elected president and vice president.

Of course, everyone remembers what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. Some supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol while Congress was meeting in that joint session.

Some Republican members of Congress had pledged to object to the results of certain states, but those objections were largely scrapped when Congress reconvened after the security lockdown ended. Despite Trump's protests, then-Vice President Mike Pence declared Joe Biden the winner. 

Assuming all goes well, the next president of the United States will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025.