Regardless of what you think or what your friend thinks or what a seasoned political prognosticator who is writing or broadcasting thinks or even what Donald Trump or Kamala Harris may think, no one knows who will win this presidential election. The ballots, certainly to be more than the 158 million cast in 2020, are secret, which is why they all need to be opened up and counted. Premature declarations of victory or defeat are just that, premature. Four years ago, the White House contest between Trump and Joe Biden was so close in so many states that a winner wasn’t known until Saturday. It may take that many days again or maybe it will all be settled tonight. There is nothing nefarious in either an extended count or speedy results. Accuracy and certitude are what matter. Yes, we’ve seen the same projections based on the 44 million early votes recorded and the 37 million mail ballots returned which are assumed to somehow be indicative because there are more Republicans than Democrats, or more women than men, or maybe it’s the other way around on the parties and sexes. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. And neither does rally attendance nor campaign contributions. The same for online chatter and crystal balls. Only votes matter. Even the exit polls, which used to be highly predictive, are far less reliable since they don’t pick up early voting or mail ballots, which every state but for New Hampshire and Alabama now allows. The Associated Press and Fox News gave up on exit polls that the other TV networks still use and are working with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which is conducting about 119,000 interviews with voters from last Monday until today. This AP VoteCast gives statisticians and research scientists a sense to measure public sentiment, but the real votes have to be tabulated. The presidential race probably won’t be close in Wyoming and Vermont and there’s a logic to why Harris and Trump are spending their time and campaign funds in just seven highly contested states, of which New York is not one of them. But even the candidates don’t know everything. On the morning of Election Day eight years ago, Hillary Clinton was pretty sure she was going to win, just as Trump was convinced he was going to lose. But he prevailed fair and square in the archaic Electoral College, the only tally that counts. We do hope that the Electoral College winner also takes the popular vote. Last time around, as the vote counting progressed, Americans learned about good people like Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his chief operating officer, Gabriel Sterling, who put their duty above party. The same for Democrats like Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in Michigan. Who knows who the 2024 featured players will be. The first polls close at 6 p.m. Eastern Time in parts of Indiana and Kentucky and the final closing comes at 1 a.m. Eastern in the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska. That brings a sure end to the campaign ads on TV and online and there will be lots of winners and losers for the U.S. House and Senate and state and local offices and ballot questions, but the big election may take longer. It’s worth the wait.