It’s official. Today is the last day to vote.
This has been called one of the craziest modern-day election years, with the coronavirus creating changes in the mail-in system and the two drastically different candidates competing for the Commander-in-Chief position. With all that in mind, there’s a lot Americans need to know before tonight.
For starters, polls in Dallas close promptly at 7 p.m. The last of the polls in the U.S. will close at 9 p.m. central time for states in the Pacific Time Zone.
As for the winner, it’s impossible to know exactly when the votes will be fully counted because of how early voting could impact different states’ ability to report results, according to CNN.
There were 99.7 million people who voted early this year. With increased early voting, particularly those by mail, it could take more time for some states to count all those ballots. This is made especially difficult because each state has different rules for how and when to count postal ballots.
For some states, it may simply take days to account for the total votes.
For example, Georgia will only count ballots received on or before November 3, while Ohio will count ballots that come in later than the third as long as they are postmarked by election day, according to the BBC.
But here in Texas, CNN notes the majority of voters in Texas voted early, and therefore, Texas votes will most likely be accounted for by Tuesday night.
However, as for how votes will be counted from voting centers on election night, election officials can generate results quickly after the polls close.
Here’s what people can expect to watch tonight though. There are a few battleground states that should be closely observed, according to NBC Reporter Dante Chinni. Dante notes people should be watching Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona because of their history of being a swing state in previous elections.
Interestingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, officials in the U.S. are encouraging citizens to simply go to bed without knowing the results of the presidential election.
As for the candidates themselves, both President Trump and Former Vice President Joe Biden are hosting rallies in the Midwest in hopes of ending with a bang.