The US election: What's going on?
We normally know who will be President by now, but it's very close
Last updated 4th Nov 2020
It's the morning here in the UK after the USA spent yesterday voting, but we still don't know who will be the next President.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are claiming they've done enough to win, with Trump even claiming the result is being stolen from them.
Here's everything you need to know about one of the most nail-biting elections in recent memory:
Who will win the election?
Great question, I'm really glad you asked. I have no idea.
The truth is that it's really too close to call, the nominees need to reach 270 votes from the various electoral colleges across the country to win and it's incredibly close
At the time of writing (9:30 am Wednesday UK time) Democrat Joe Biden is leading with 224 votes, but Trump has 213 with many states still to count enough ballots to form a projected result.
A lot of polls suggested Joe Biden would win and the early results agreed with that, but Trump has had a better election night than predicted and whatever the result, it's going to be very close.
Why don't we know all the results yet?
Mainly because a huge amount of votes were cast by post this year due to the pandemic.
It's going to take a long time to count those votes, maybe days, so it will be a long time before we get a result.
There is also the potential of legal challenges, which could mean the final result could take weeks and end up in the Supreme Court.
What US election results do we know?
The US voting system is different to ours, each state gets a number of votes depending on the size of the population and it's this that decides the President.
This 'electoral college' system means some states are more key than others due to the number of votes they have.
To become President, a nominee must win 270 of those votes. We know Biden has 224 and Trump 213 at the moment.
Mr Trump, however, has seized major victories in the key bellwethers of Florida and Ohio, which both have long records of choosing the winner of the White House.
Former vice-president Mr Biden still has clear routes to victory, however, having won a major coup by seizing Arizona, a state that has only backed a Democrat in the race once in 72 years.
Why is Trump threatening legal action?
Donal Trump has claimed there is a “fraud on the American nation” and said he would go to the Supreme Court to get vote counting stopped, as the nail-biting contest continued.
Mr Trump gave a speech in the White House to say there was a “massive fraud” in the election and accuse a “very sad group of people” of trying to disenfranchise his supporters.
“This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country,” he said.
“We were getting ready to win this election – frankly we did win this election.
“So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment.
“We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we will be going to the US Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop.”
Even during the divisive election campaign overshadowed by the complexities of voting during the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Biden’s campaign expected Mr Trump to seize on record numbers of postal votes to allege he was being cheated.
When will we find out the result?
It's likely to be days before we have a good indication of who will be President.
Postal votes are yet to be counted in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and these could be definitive on the race to be President.
However it could take weeks if Donald Trump takes this to court.
He's promised legal action and if the result is very close it could take a long time to play out in the US Supreme Court.