A candidate could win the popular vote in several states by huge margins but narrowly lose states that control the majority of electoral votes. In Illinois, the voting stops at 7 p.m. It is 11 p.m. in New York when the polls close in California. These different closing times are likely to add an even greater element of tension if the election is close and partisans have to wait for West Coast results to see who won. All day long, people will be hearing results spawned by exit polling, in which surveys are taken of people who have already voted.
Exit polls are, at the very least, controversial and far from official.
Exit polls have been under fire for years, particularly on the West Coast, where politicians worry that exit polling analysis from the East Coast may dampen the enthusiasm of local voters. To counter that possibility, many campaigns in the West urge their supporters to get to the polls early in the day so they are not affected by news media reports and predictions based on East Coast exit polls. The real grit of Election Day begins with ballot counting. Counting can take a long time. In California, for example, voters have requested 3.2 million absentee ballots.