Life /
Where to watch US election in Krakow? [17]
Hey AmericanGirl -- It kinda depends on when the results are announced.
Short answer: Possibly as early as 3 or 4:00 am Wednesday morning here in Poland (9 - 10:00pm EST) if there is a wide margin. If it's close, it could take until around 8:00 Wednesday morning to know for sure. If it's REALLY close, it could go later.
Last polls on the West Coast close at 11:00 PM EST, which is 5:00 on Wednesday morning in Poland, but they usually know how these states will go before polls close.
More specifically, it goes like this:
During the day of voting, news organizations conduct exit polling, which is basically just asking people walking out of their voting location who they voted for. These polls are tallied to give an idea of how a state has voted, but they are not the official results and are only really reliable when a state doesn't have a tight margin.
As actual polling places begin to close, official results begin to come in and these are given to news organizations. You can see when polling places close on this CNN website: cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/poll.closing/
You'll hear news organizations "calling a state" for one candidate or the other based on exit-polling and official results. They are more conservative about doing this now than in the past due to news organizations incorrectly calling states when polling places were still open in past elections and potentially affecting voting results. (i.e., Florida)
As states are called, the total electoral votes for each candidate are displayed. Whoever gets 270 votes wins. At this point, we'll know who won.
So, if there is a fairly wide margin, we will know sometime during the night in the States who won. If it's close, it can drag on in to the next day as votes are counted and re-counted.
Hope that's helpful! :)
- CP
--- EDIT ---
Also, this page on Slate.com give a good run-down of what to watch for, when specific polling places close, and what it can mean for the candidates:
slate.com/id/2203657/
