Thread by @MatthewBevan

Ok the number one question people are asking me (and everyone who follows this) is when on Wednesday are things happening... so here you go - all times are Canberra/Melbourne/Sydney time.

10am - First states close. Indiana and Kentucky. Don’t even look up from your laptop.

11am - Most of Florida (everything but the bits of the panhandle in the central time zone) closes. Georgia closes.

Exit polls will be published. Ignore them, except if they indicate Biden is well ahead in Georgia. In that case, Trump is in DEEP trouble.

If Biden wins Georgia, he will almost certainly win the election, but Georgia will take ages (days probably) to count.

However, Florida learned in 2000 that they have to get it together when it comes to vote counting, so they’re going to do it much faster.

All of Florida will close at midday and we will start to get an idea of what the go is. We will reach a fork in the road:

If Biden wins Florida: Game over for Trump. We will know the likely election result mid afternoon.

If it’s close in Florida or Trump wins: continue reading.

Trump essentially cannot win the election without Florida. Biden has many ways of winning without Florida, but it’s going to take longer to count.

By 2pm all other important states will have closed. They will start counting.

Trump is apparently planning to declare victory if he’s doing ok. He will probably have a go at this around 4pm (midnight in DC)
axios.com/trump-claim-el…

Trump’s team have told @jonathanvswan that they’ll declare victory if they look ahead in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Arizona and Georgia. Even if he wins all of these, he’s still got a LONG WAY to go. 538 says Trump would have a 65% chance of going on to victory.

And yet if he loses ANY (not all, any) of those, we’re back in “Biden’s probably going to win” territory. But say Trump is ahead in all of those, and Biden is ahead in most of the other battlegrounds (Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire)...

...at this stage it’s starting to get more likely that it’s all going to come down to Pennsylvania. And that’s when you put your party hats away and put the wine back in the bar fridge, cos it’s going to take a while.

Pennsylvania SUCKS at counting votes. They’ll take days. Maybe weeks. Trump is likely to appear ahead before postal votes come in, and he will claim he’s already won the state. Now we’re in court case, street protest territory. We will know that by Wednesday mid evening.

If we get all the way to Pennsylvania being the key battleground, which is not unlikely, I’ll do a new thread.

All of this is based on probability, and predictions from multiple sites. There are circumstances where Trump can win without Pennsylvania or Florida, but it is extremely unlikely to turn out that way.

TL;DR: When the US Election is being counted on Wednesday, use the Melbourne Cup as your guide (and imagine you like the Melbourne Cup)

Start paying attention to the election exactly 24 hours after you start paying attention to what’s going on at Flemington.

Also, all of this is predicated on everything running relatively smoothly on Election Day.

Possible wild cards include polling booth violence; infrastructure failure (machines breaking, ballots missing); dodginess from state governments and of course foreign interference.

It’s these wild card things I’ll mainly be focusing on during Wednesday. But if any of that stuff happens, your plans are going out the window.

All of those wild cards ONLY MATTER if it’s relatively close. If Trump or Biden show a clear lead on Wednesday, those things are unlikely to matter much.

Also this thread is only if you’ve actually got something else to be doing on Election Day. If you’ve blocked out the day for this, put on the TV at 11am and leave it there cos it’s going to be quite a ride.