US Election results could take longer, even another day, unless...

US Election Result 2024: It is highly likely that the election results will be delayed well after the night of November 5 in the US, or into the next morning, as Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are locked in what pollsters predicted would be a supertight race for president.

Unless that is, the pollsters were wrong and one candidate has a very clear, unassailable lead in the electoral college votes.

The majority mark for the Electoral College votes is 270, out of 538.

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At the time of writing this, the Associated Press news agency is projecting more electoral college votes for Trump than Harris. The AP projections are considered near-official.

But these victories for Trump in states like Flordia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tenessee, Mississipi, Alabama, West Virginia and South Carolina are too early to confirm a national trend and include traditionally Republican, or red states.

The final results will be known only when battleground states finish their voting, and this election cycle, there are seven of them out of the total 50: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

The early leads for Trump happened in 2020 too, only to dash his hopes and reject the outcome as his Democratic rival Joe Biden won the electoral college votes and became president.

This time, the Trump camp is keeping a 'wait and watch' approach. Earlier reports had said that Trump was not going to immediately address the press on election night. 

Counting is already slow, as long lines in some polling stations meant that polling is going to continue late into the evening.

The counting of absentee ballots is going to be long and tedious, as identity checking and verification is going to take time. 

In both in-person and postal ballots, there are chances of legal challenges too, complicating and delaying the process futher.

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Early voting has been very impressive this year, both by mail and in person, adding up to over 80 million. Counting of these, particularly postal ones, is going to be slow, as it has to be thorough and could see many legal challenges, particularly from the Trump camp.

Some media reports are saying that the results may not be complete untill Wednesday evening, local time.

That's mainly becase the battlegound states also saw high percentage of early voting.

When the results reach a deadheat situation, particularly in battleground states, legal challenges and demands for recounts could follow. In cases of razor-thin victory margins, this could be more pertinent.

Election rules vary by state, but generally speaking, many states allow for recounting if the margin is narrow, or by a percentage points. If this happens in cases where the absolute number of votes is in tens of thousands, counting could take more hours, or perhaps another day, to finsh.

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This is what happened in the equally contentious presidntial race of 2020. While the elections took place on November 3, the final electoral college results came in on November 7 after days of counting and recounting.

That's a far cry from 2016, when Trump, fighting the race for the first time, was declared winner on election night itself, as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton conceded.

So, given Trump's penchant for litigation and unfounded vote-rigging allegations, the only scenario where the results could come at the end of Election Night is if he is at an unassailable lead in the electoral college voting.

That appears unlikely as, at the time of writing, Trump is ahead in 188 seats, with Harris closing in at nearly 100, with most battleground state results yet to come in.

(With inputs from agencies)