What Time Are Election Results Announced? — Election Night Timeline

Nov. 8 is here, which means we’ll (hopefully) know who our new president is in just hours. But what time can we expect the results to be tallied and officially announced? Here’s an expected timeline!

Donald Trump, 70, or Hillary Clinton, 69, will officially be our country’s new president after the votes come in on Nov. 8, and while we don’t know the exact time we’ll know the results, we can get a pretty good idea based on when the polls close.

For the most part, polls open between 6 and 7 a.m. in their respective time zones, and are open until between 7 and 8 p.m. The first voting booths close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6:00 p.m. ET, and then throughout the evening, we’ll start getting projections based on exit polls as votes from more states come in.

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Big target states like Pennsylvania and Michigan’s polls close at 8:00 p.m. ET, while things will end in New York at 9:00 p.m. ET. California, which has the most electoral votes, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon and Washington will be the last states to close at 11:00 p.m. ET, making this the earliest point at which results can be “called.”

Of course, plenty of states can be too close to call based on exit polls alone, and it could be quite some time before the actual results come in. In the last election back in 2012, Barack Obama was not officially declared as president until 4:38 a.m, although the results were projected in the 11:00 hour.

So, best case scenario, we’ll know our next president by the very end of Nov. 8 or sometime in the early hours of Nov. 9. However, President Obama will continue serving in his lame duck period until Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, when the new president will officially take office.

HollywoodLifers, will you be voting on Election Day?! Which of the candidates is your favorite?