By late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday, we may know who is going to be the next president of the United States. Or we may know that we don’t yet know. Or we may know who’s been projected as the winner but be bracing ourselves for weeks of legal action and protest. It’s going to be that sort of night.
A reminder of the basics: whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris is the next president will be decided by the electoral college, rather than a straight count of the national vote – meaning that the winner will be the person who gets to a simple majority of 270 of the 538 electors on offer across the 50 states, whether or not they get more votes than their opponent nationwide.
