Buzz
We can't say exactly what election night will unfold, but the era of receiving somewhat accurate (though unofficial) results before midnight has passed. Even if the evening progresses without incident, it’s likely that the night and the days that follow will be filled with tension and uncertainty. It’s best to prepare ahead of time.
Focus on Getting Through the Day First
Before we even reach election night, we must first navigate the day. You might be at work, finding time to cast your vote, or volunteering with efforts to get out the vote. Use these distractions to your advantage. Focus on completing each task at hand.
If you find yourself with a long stretch of free time ahead, consider filling it with structured activities to keep yourself engaged. Exercise, meditation, volunteering, running errands, or even doing crafts can help you release excess energy as you wait for the day to unfold.
And don’t forget to cast your vote! Check your registration status and familiarize yourself with your state’s voting laws, if you haven’t done so yet. If early voting is an option, consider taking advantage of it. If you plan to vote in person on election day, make sure you know when and how you’ll get to the polls, and be prepared with the necessary information about what to do if you’re turned away; in many cases, you may be eligible to submit a provisional ballot.
Deliberately consider your perspective
While handling all these tasks, you might find yourself bracing for the worst. But experts suggest embracing cautious optimism, which offers the mental advantage of hoping for the best. Tell your skeptical side that if the worst is inevitable, you might as well enjoy some positive emotions while you still can.
It's also beneficial to reflect on possible scenarios. If Trump wins, how will you respond? How can you mentally prepare for that outcome? What will you do if Harris wins? What if the election results are contested or delayed for weeks or months? Thinking through both the best and worst outcomes helps you stay grounded and mentally prepared, no matter what happens.
Be aware of the possibilities
With mail-in voting becoming more prevalent since the 2020 elections, the process of counting ballots has become more complex. Before 2020, absentee votes made up only a small portion of the total, and the winner was often clear by the end of election night, even without the mail-in vote count. However, in 2020, the situation changed, and we didn't receive complete unofficial results for four days.
Similarly, television networks and newspapers often rely on exit polls—surveying people as they leave polling stations about their vote choice. However, these polls become less accurate when there’s a political divide, such as when Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.
Despite the fact that traditional methods of reporting are now less reliable, media outlets may still attempt to predict the outcome by looking at early vote counts. However, this election differs from past ones in many ways, and it’s uncertain how these early projections will relate to the final results. We can likely expect a similar process to 2020—but that year was unique due to the pandemic disruptions.
Keeping all this in mind can help you manage the uncertainty when following the election results as they come in. It’s also crucial to step back and remember that watching the vote count on election night is more of a media event than a direct part of the democratic process. In most states, election results aren’t officially certified until several weeks later, typically in late November or early December.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has outlined state-specific certification deadlines, with Oregon’s deadline being the latest at December 12. Recounts may cause further delays in certification. Meanwhile, both major political parties are preparing for potential legal challenges, with Republicans already filing what media outlets are calling a "flurry" of lawsuits aimed at contesting election procedures in battleground states.
Try to ease your stress, or at least make an effort
If the election results are causing you anxiety, Nov. 5 will certainly not feel like a typical Tuesday night. Plan ahead to manage your calm, and also set boundaries to prevent your emotions from spiraling out of control.
A helpful strategy might be to figure out who you can confide in. Who do you turn to for comfort or celebration, and does it depend on how you’re feeling? If your spouse or roommates don’t share your outlook on the election, you might want to arrange to be with someone else, whether in person or virtually. If you find your support network on social media, consider messaging friends individually instead of endlessly scrolling through feeds.
Make sure to set up your self-care plan, tailored to your needs, but approach it wisely: If you think the evening will go smoother with a drink or two, or if you turn to weed to manage stress, indulge responsibly. If you haven’t yet figured out your go-to activity for potentially tense nights, why not prepare and enjoy an elaborately optimized bath?
Give yourself a damn bedtime
When you wake up on Wednesday morning, whatever unfolds will be there waiting for you. Maybe a concession speech will have been delivered overnight. Or, it’s possible that millions of votes are still uncounted, and the election remains undecided. Another scenario: A presumptive winner may have emerged, but the candidates and states are already deep in legal disputes over the validity of certain votes.
Whatever the outcome is, it will be there for you in the morning, no matter how late you stay up on Tuesday night. Decide for yourself how much nonsense you’re willing to tolerate, and set a clear limit.
Maybe you want to dive into the chaos of election night because you thrive on drama and uncertainty, and you’re eager to see how people on social media react. If you stay up until midnight, will that still allow you enough rest? If you go to 2 a.m. and the news is disheartening, will you feel it was time well spent? Set a hard limit on how late you’re willing to stay up. Trust your calmer, still-sane mind to make that decision, because your sleep-deprived, panicked brain won’t know when to stop.
Or maybe you care enough about your well-being that you want to maximize your happiness, despite the circumstances. Lights out at 10 p.m. All the fresh anxieties will still be there waiting for you in the morning, regardless of when you fall asleep.
Do bedtime right
At the very least, you must turn off your notifications. If you ignore everything else I’ve said, the absolute bare minimum is to ensure your phone is set to Do Not Disturb when you finally decide to go to sleep, no matter how late it is.
But you still have time to plan. If an app like Slack lets you schedule notification pauses, make sure they’re properly set up. (If you use Slack for work, you should probably have notifications silenced outside of your work hours anyway.) You can also put your phone into sleep mode every night, allowing only your closest contacts to reach you in case of an emergency. Go over your settings now.
And specifically, think about what your phone will look like when you wake up. Do you want to be greeted by a flood of news alerts, or would you rather keep them off? If you’re bracing for bad news, you could even prepare a peaceful morning routine, like having breakfast, before you pick up your phone and face the news. While you can’t control what happens on election night, you can control how much it invades your personal time.
