America woke up Wednesday morning without a winner of the presidential election. ThatB次元官网网址檚 OK.

Critical battleground states including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania remained without declared winners, leaving both President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden short of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

This isnB次元官网网址檛 necessarily a surprise. In a year turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, many states made it easier to vote by mail, and millions chose to do so rather than venturing out to cast ballots in person. That meant a slowdown in the tabulation of results because votes received by mail often take longer to process than ballots cast at polling places.

And the closer the margin in a state is, the more votes are needed for The Associated Press to declare a winner.

There are also roughly 20 states that allow ballots received after Election Day to be counted if they were postmarked by the day of the election. That includes Pennsylvania, one of the key outstanding states.

Some states, including Florida, began counting absentee ballots days before Election Day B次元官网网址� and had definitive results within hours of the polls closing. The AP declared Trump the winner in Florida.

The abundance of absentee ballots also has thrown into doubt historical norms, making the arc of the race harder to determine B次元官网网址� though one political narrative that held for sure is that the country remains evenly divided between both parties.

None of that means there is anything wrong with the results, or any reason to doubt the vote-counting process. It just means the country doesnB次元官网网址檛 know who won the presidential election for the time being.

And we donB次元官网网址檛 yet know when weB次元官网网址檒l know.

The delay doesnB次元官网网址檛 signify a positive for one side or the other B次元官网网址� even though it has provoked radically different reactions from each.

Biden took an outdoor stage in Delaware shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday and said the country needed more time to determine its next president, declaring, B次元官网网址淵our patience is commendable.B次元官网网址�

B次元官网网址淲e knew because of the unprecedented early vote, the mail-in vote, that it was going to take awhile,B次元官网网址� Biden said. B次元官网网址淲eB次元官网网址檙e going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished, and it ainB次元官网网址檛 over until every vote is counted.B次元官网网址�

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Trump spent months railing against expanding mail-in voting and suggesting without evidence that it could lead to widespread fraud, while imploring with equal fervour that the election should have a result on the same night the polls closed. In the early morning hours of Wednesday, he told a crowd of cheering supporters at the White House that he would challenge the election results before the Supreme Court, though it was unclear exactly what type of legal challenge he was proposing.

That prompted a statement from Biden campaign manager Jen OB次元官网网址橫alley Dillion, who said: B次元官网网址淚f the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail.B次元官网网址�

Vote tabulations routinely continue beyond Election Day, and states largely set the rules for when the count has to end.

The U.S. has endured a presidential race without an immediate winner before. In 2000, a Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 12 B次元官网网址� more than a month after Election Day B次元官网网址� ended the Florida recount and awarded the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.

This time, media outlets including The Associated Press and others frequently warned a delayed verdict could occur B次元官网网址� suggesting that an election where campaigning was so disrupted wouldnB次元官网网址檛 escape seeing its conclusion get scrambled as well.

EXPLAINING RACE CALLS:

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Will Weissert, The Associated Press

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