Dont expect to know the winner on election night

A very tight race, the likelihood of cheating allegations as well as some unique traits of the American electoral system point to days of uncertainty after the Nov 5 presidential election.

- Jeremy Au Yong

If the previous two US presidential elections are anything to go by, there will be a victory speech by Donald Trump sometime between 2am and 3am on election night - regardless of the result.

In 2016, when it became clear that Trump was on course for a stunning win over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, he delivered his victory remarks from a ballroom at the Hilton hotel in New York at about 2.50am.

Then in 2020, at 2.30am, while it was still unclear who had won, he said in a speech at the White House: "We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election."

So if there is one thing anyone can say with some certainty about election night in the US just over a week from now, it is that Donald Trump is very likely to make a victory speech in the wee hours of the morning.

Everything else - including the identity of the actual winner of the vote - will likely be unclear on election night. In fact, most pundits agree that the 2024 result might take even longer than the four days it took to project Mr Ioe Biden the winner in 2020.

The reasons for this delay are manifold, some unique to the circumstances of this election, and some are just long-standing quirks of how the US picks its leaders.

US ELECTION IOI: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Before we get more in depth into the reasons, let's just get the basics out of the way. US voters do not directly elect their president despite checking a box next to the name of their desired leader.

A body called the electoral college elects the president. Voter are essentially telling the electoral college how to vote.