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Patience, America and the world.
We may not know who won the United States presidential election tomorrow. And if so, it does not necessarily mean anything is broken, fraudulent, corrupted or wrong.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested a slower-than-typical result is a sign of trouble.
"I think it's terrible that we can't know the results of an election the night of the election," he said yesterday. "I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over."
It's unclear what the president thinks is a long period. But it's standard practice to continue tabulating votes after election day.
Here's a closer look at why that count could take longer than usual, and why that might mean we may not know the winner on the day:
WHAT'S NEW THIS YEAR?
The biggest factor that may slow things down this year is clear: Millions of Americans decided to vote by mail rather than risk contracting coronavirus at a polling place. And in general, those mail ballots take longer to count.
Election workers must remove the ballots from their envelopes, check for errors, sort them and flatten them — all before they can be run through scanners the moment polls close and be tabulated. In states with well-established vote-by-mail programmes, this processing happens weeks before election day. The results are often released quickly.
But several states did not have this system in place before this year and laws on the books prohibited election officials from processing the ballots well in advance of election day. Without a head start, there's virtually no way to process and count all the mail votes on election day, while also counting all the in-person votes.
There are three important battlegrounds with restrictions on when the mail vote can be processed — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In those states, Republican-controlled legislatures have resisted pleas from election officials to update the laws to allow for a speedier count. (The Michigan legislature did allow processing to begin 24 hours before election day in cities, but election officials say that's not enough of a head start.) Instead, they will initially report in-person votes — expected to heavily favour Trump — and gradually update with the more Democratic-leaning mail ballots later.

The Biden campaign is preparing for a long election night, and is warning the country — and the media — to ignore any victory declaration from Trump before all the ballots are counted.https://t.co/ZyO3moexxA
— Axios (@axios) November 2, 2020
BUT DON'T NEWS ORGANISATIONS CALL A WINNER BEFORE ALL THE VOTE IS COUNTED?
Yes, there's never been a presidential race in history in which all votes are counted on election day. It's just not physically possible to instantly count that many ballots — possibly as many as 150 million tomorrow.
Media organisations, including AP, declare winners in thousands of races on election day based on the results that are in, voter surveys and other political data.
But in a close race, more of the vote may need to be counted before AP can call a winner.
IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR KNOWING THE WINNER TOMORROW?
Sure. Not all battleground states are slow-counting states. So if several key states release their results promptly, one candidate may have a majority of the electoral vote — even without knowing who won in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan.
That becomes more likely if the races in those states are not close.
It's a scenario that puts a lot of eyes on Florida. The state allows its election offices to process mail ballots 22 days before the election. It's also the biggest swing state. As long as the race isn't too close — a big "if" in a place famous for tight races — there could be a close-to-complete count tomorrow. And if Trump loses Florida, it's is very difficult for him to reach the 270 electoral votes he needs to defeat former Vice-President Joe Biden and return to the White House.
Two othe...