When will we know who won the election?


For those of us trying to figure out how many episodes of Westworld we can fit in before the presidential race gets called — well, there's no exact science. The first polls in Indiana and Kentucky will close at 6 p.m. ET and the rest of the results will start to roll in pretty much every half hour after that.
By 8 p.m. ET, enough states will have voted to account for the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the election. "At 9 p.m., Hillary Clinton could have enough electoral votes for victory if she takes all the states where she is expected to win, every one of the six competitive states that finish voting by that hour, and Maine's Second Congressional District. The six states are Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Ohio," The New York Times writes.
If Donald Trump is to win, his fastest path to victory would come from polls that close around 10 p.m. ET — but he would have to win Alaska for that to happen, and The Last Frontier won't finish voting until 1 a.m. ET.
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Should the race be called by 9 p.m. ET, it would be an early night by the standards of recent elections; an election hasn't been called that early since 1996. Jeva Lange
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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