Press in Spain, Russia, South Korea and Australia looks first at the conduct of the election on election night

Before reliable results are available, media in several countries report above all on the conduct of the election in the night to 4 November 2026. The emphasis differs: some put glitches first, others the role of the government, others stress that the process remained essentially calm.

Russia: glitches as a first tally. The business newspaper Kommersant puts its first results under the headline “Voting, glitches and statements” (last updated 4 November, 1:18 CET). It lists: in New York, according to Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins, voting machines were unable to count up to 250,000 ballots. According to the election board there, this was due to missing software updates. The newspaper also cites false messages about relocated polling places in Fulton County (Georgia), missing ballots at some polling places in Chicago and, according to CNN, waits of up to two hours at more than 10 polling places in Texas. The Justice Department had for the first time sent election observers to all 50 states.

South Korea: observers and courts. Jung Yu-jin writes from Washington in Kyunghyang Shinmun (3 November, 20:12 CET) that the Justice Department had dispatched 1000 observers to all 50 states, according to reports three times as many as in 2022. She reads this as an attempt to collect possible problem cases in the event of a clear defeat. She also quotes the New York Times as saying that minor malfunctions of voting machines occur in almost every election. NEWS M (23:40 CET) highlights that the Supreme Court on 2 November rejected an emergency application by the government to restrict the counting of just over 20,000 mail-in ballots in California. The newspaper stresses that this decides only the emergency application.

Spain: doubts about the procedure. The live blog of Público quotes Trump at 22:41 CET: “Reconoceré el resultado si las elecciones son limpias” (I will recognize the result if the election is clean). The newspaper writes that Trump sowed doubt without evidence. It also reports that California Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening the immigration agency ICE with arrests if it disrupts polling places, and that by his own account he is deploying over 1000 observers of his own.

Australia and a South Korean business newspaper: disruptions, but a calm process. The public broadcaster ABC reports on glitches in Florida, Kansas and Georgia and at 20:08 CET quotes the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, Joe Scott: “Nobody voted on the wrong ballot.” The broadcaster explains to its readers that, unlike Australia, the US has no national electoral authority and results therefore come via agencies such as AP. The Chinese edition of the South Korean business newspaper JKN (22:20 CET) headlines that the process went “平稳” (calmly) despite some equipment failures.

These are the media's accounts and assessments, not government statements. Kommersant is a private paper, not a state outlet. When which results will come is shown under counting and election night. Further voices from abroad are under Reports.