Kamala or Trump? Early results will start ticking from today

Over the last 25 years, Americans have regularly found themselves up into the early morning hours waiting for news organizations to make the decisive call of the last state needed to put a presidential candidate in the White House, and to learn who controls Congress.

A moment like this on election night in 2000 led to our common language of Republican states as red states and Democratic states as blue states, as the US watched the Meet the Press host Tim Russert on NBC talk late through the night about what was happening in Florida.

It's extremely unlikely that we'll know the winner of the presidential contest on election night, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are virtually tied in the polls, and the odds that the race comes down to a small number of swing states is high.

So when will we know who won the US election?

Well, that depends on how close things turn out to be. Four swing states - Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - have absentee ballot procedures that can require days to conclude. But if Harris has decisively won the other swing states, it is enough to declare her the victor. Any other result will take time.