Yu Leng

From half way across the world, we're looking at the tea leaves of Twitter mentions. What does it portend for Trump-Pence versus Biden-Harris?

We're used to mass voting on polling day (with very few early voters), but in the US, there has been early and postal voting going on for weeks. Checking in with my US data analytics friend, he had this to say: "Biden has a healthy lead but there is a lot of uncertainty due to a huge increase in postal and early voting by Democrats due to Covid-19 and voter suppression by Republicans."

Sharon

Last election, I had friends who walked around shell-shocked as the results poured in. For days after that, many questioned how did the press not picked up on the sentiment of the voters. They felt that the reporting had all pointed a sure win for Hilary Clinton.

This election is setting up to be another close one as the country is more divisive four years on. Will there be a decisive result on election night or will it take days to announce the winner? If there is a recount, how long will it take?

Nadirah

During the 2016 elections, my then-boss made a RM50 bet with his colleague that Trump would win against Clinton. We half-thought he was joking, so nobody in the office took him (and Trump) seriously.

I mean, yeah, Trump later won and the world got a little darker, but we got treated to ice cream from that well-earned (?) RM50 (I think). Good times.

From a personal point of view, social media for this round of elections seems just as frenzied as four years ago—this time, however, it feels tinged with an edge of desperation. Personalities across all fields have been constantly encouraging their followers to vote, from comedians including Stephen Colbert and Sarah Cooper, to YouTube personalities such as the Try Guys, to artists like Nikkolas Smith and Bianca Xunise. With complications thanks to the pandemic and allegations of voter suppression, though, the million-dollar question is: will it work?

From the PolTracker team, 3 Nov 2020

Ps. Editor: WSJ writes, “3 in 10 — The share of voters who cast their ballots on Election Day rather than by voting early or by mail.”