Hour by hour: When and how the swing states will report votes tonight

In the United States, the absence of a federal election commission means that reporting of vote results is handled at the state level.

The seven states seen as most crucial to deciding the presidential contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris each have their own laws about how to count votes.

In 2020, Trump declared victory before many states were decided, seizing upon early Republican leads in the vote counting. Some states took several hours or even days to count mail-in ballots.

The Harris campaign has stated it is prepared to counter misinformation about so-called mirages where one party appears to have a significant early advantage that may diminish as more votes are counted.

• Follow state results live

In 2016, the Associated Press was able to call the presidential election at just after 2:30 a.m. ET, just over 90 minutes after the last poll in the U.S. closed, in Alaska. In 2020, with a record number of votes received by mail and overall, the presidency was called by the AP on Saturday, about 3 days after polls closed.

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According to theUniversity of Florida's election lab page, over 18 million Americans voted early in the seven perceived swing states. Some states mix early ballots with the ones cast onelection day when they begin counting, while others count them in a specific order.

• What do you want to know about the U.S. election? Email us at ask@cbc.ca to tell us.

Here's a look at when polls close in the states and how they handle their early ballots. In five of these states, there are also elections taking place that are crucial in determining which party will control the Senate.

7 p.m. ET: Georgia

Polls close in Georgia, which holds 16 electoral college votes in the presidential race. State law there allows county elections officials to begin tabulating mail-in ballots at 7 a.m. on election day.

As a result, the first votes reported on election night will include much of the mail-in ballot haul as well as early in-person votes.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that four million people had already voted in the state, and that he expected about 70 per cent of the total vote including people who voted early in person or by mail to be reported about an hour after polls close.

LISTEN l CBC's Paul Hunter on what to watch for election night:

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7:30 pm. ET: North Carolina

Polls close in North Carolina, with its 16 electoral college votes.

North Carolina has a track record of counting votes relatively quickly, leaving only about oneper cent of the vote uncounted after election night. This year, the count could be slowed in some areas due to the effects of Hurricane Helene. Emergency measures were approved in hurricane-affected counties to give voters additional options for turning in their absentee ballots.

State law allows county elections officials to begin tabulating mail-in ballots before the polls have closed on election day. As a result, the first votes reported on election night will include many of these mail-in ballots.

8 p.m. ET: Pennsylvania, Michigan

Polls close in Pennsylvania, a crucial state with 19 electoral college votes.

Elections officials by law must wait until 7 a.m. ET on election day before they can even begin to process ballots cast by mail a total estimated by the secretary of state at two million votes. Determining the presidential winner could take days because of the overall volume of mail-in ballots in the 2022 midterms, they represented a quarter of the total vote and the varying amounts of time it takes the state's 67 counties to tally votes.

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The first vote results reported after polls close are expected to come from mail-inballots. Results from later in the night are expected to be a mix of mail-in votes and votes cast in person on Election Day. Once vote counting stretches into Wednesdayand beyond, the vote results are once again expected to come mostly from mail-in ballots.

Secretary of State Al Schmidt recently asked people to be patient.

"Pennsylvania has never had final results on election night, regardless of whether media outlets have announced winners on that night or at a later date," he said.

Michigan, with 15 electoral college votes, covers two time zones. Most of the state polls close at 8 p.m., while some voters in the Upper Peninsula are casting ballots until 9 p.m.

A new Michigan law means that election officials in towns with at least 5,000 people may begin processing and tabulating ballots up to eight days before election day, while smaller jurisdictions may begin the morning before election day.

"We'll have a much smaller number of those ballots this time [than in 2020] and much higher capacity to efficiently and securely and accurately process and tabulate those ballots tomorrow," Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Monday. About 40 per cent of eligible voters had cast a ballot already, she said.

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9 p.m. ET: Wisconsin, Arizona

Polls close in Wisconsin, which awards 10 electoral votes to the presidential contest winner in the state.

In Wisconsin, the first vote results reported on election night tend to be a mix of ballots cast on election day and in advance. Democratic strongholds in Milwaukee and Dane counties have tended to take longer in tabulating votes in the recent past.

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While Arizona polls also close at 9 p.m. ET, the state does not release votes until all precincts have reported or one hour after all polls are closed, whichever is first. Historically, that's usually been 10 p.m. ET.

• How the Assocated Press calls elections

In Arizona, with its 11 electoral college votes, ballots cast and processed before election day are the first to be reported after polls close.

Mail-in ballots delivered right on election day cannot be processed or verified until after polls close. In Maricopa, the largest and most influential of the counties, about 20 per cent of the nearly 1.6 million votes cast in 2022 midterms were mail-in ballots dropped off on election day.

10 p.m. ET: Nevada

Polls close in Nevada, with its six electoral college votes, but the state does not release any vote results until the final voter in line has cast a ballot.

In 2021, the state adopted a law requiring mail-in ballots to be automatically sent to active voters. As a result, in the 2022 midterm elections, about 80 per cent of voters cast their ballots in-person before election day, or by mail.

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It takes 270 electoral college votes to win the U.S. presidency, and it looks like we're headed for a tight race Tuesday night. Seven swing states will likely determine the winner between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Correction: A previous version of this video showed the incorrect state map for Nevada.

Mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day will be counted if they are received by Friday. With a large number of mail-in ballots potentially arriving after election day, the outcome of some highly competitive races might not be determined until these ballots are received and tabulated.

In Nevada, candidates can request a recount regardless of vote margin, but must do so within three days of the statewide canvass.

Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania all have provisions for recounts if the vote margin at the top of the race is 0.5 per cent or less, though they vary on whether it's automatic or whether a candidate has to request and pay for a new count.

In Michigan, automatic recounts occur for statewide races where the margin between first and second place is 2,000 votes and fewer.