WASHINGTON — After polls close on election night, attention will shift on Tuesday to The Associated Press and the major television networks to report the results and announce who will be the next president.
Tens of millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots when the last votes are submitted on Election Day.
Some years, we've learned presidential election results within hours of the first polls closing. But in recent years, it's taken longer to know for sure which candidate has won enough electoral votes to win the White House.
The AP has counted the vote on which many leading news organizations base their projections and declare winners since 1848.
What time were presidential election results known in previous years?
In the 2020 presidential election, AP declared Joe Biden the winner four days after Election Day – at 11:26 a.m. ET on Saturday, Nov. 7.
In 2016, AP called the race for Donald Trump at 2:29 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, November 9, after determining that Trump had won Wisconsin, thereby exceeding the necessary 270 electoral votes.
In 2012, AP declared at 11:38 p.m. ET on election night that Barack Obama had been re-elected, beating Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The AP call came after determining that Obama had won Colorado, thereby exceeding the necessary 270 electoral votes.
In 2008, all of the major networks declared around 11 p.m. ET that Democrat Barack Obama had been elected the first African American president of the United States, defeating Republican John McCain.
When will election results be announced? When do we find out who won the election?
The U.S. doesn't have a nationwide body that collects and releases election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, following standards set by the states. In many cases, the states themselves don't even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.
Results will begin to be announced after polls close in each individual state on election night. But it may take some time before we know who will be the next president.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.