polls open as America votes for next president

Elizabeth Garland isn’t here to enjoy the scenery. She’s here, she says, to keep Donald Trump out of office. “I feel embarrassed as an American. Our country is so toxic and divided. Something has to change,” said the 66-year-old copywriter.

Garland said she was voting for Kamala Harris, who is “better suited for bringing together the country.” She added: “Her messaging hasn’t been hateful and aggressive like Trump’s.”

If the Democrats stand any chance of carrying Wisconsin, they will require a strong turnout from those living in large urban centres like Kenosha, Milwaukee and Madison, collectively home to almost one million people, a sixth of the state’s population.

• Wisconsin results: live tracker

Kamala Harris is at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, working the phones at a phone bank.

She spoke to a little girl called Sage, who answered the phone. “You are eight years old? You are still a leader!” she told her. The child’s mother then came on the line, and Harris reassured her that education would be a priority.

Another woman said she was grateful to Harris for “the journey that you’ve been on”. She added: “I want to thank you for your grace and energy.”

Harris replied: “That’s very kind and thoughtful, thank you, my dear. We are all doing this together.”

Alistair Dawber reporting from Nazareth, Pennsylvania

Benjamin Jacques says he is an independent voter who has conservative leanings, although his “Latinos for Trump” baseball hat rather gives away how he has voted in this election.

Sitting on a deckchair outside a polling station at the St John’s United Church of Christ, he says the voters he has spoken to are split down the middle between Harris and Trump. “God has given us a beautiful November 5,” he says.

Possibly unaware that his hat is a giveaway, he adds: “I’m leaning towards Trump. I don’t like leftist, socialist policies, but either way this is a beautiful way of expressing our First Amendment rights.”

Nazareth is in Northampton county, a key bellwether area of Pennsylvania. Whoever wins here is well on their way to the White House.

• Pennsylvania results: live tracker

More information has been revealed about one of the men arrested for threats of violence in the run-up to the election.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, a suspect was taken into custody in for online threats. Isaac Sissel, 25, allegedly wrote: “I shall carry out an attack against conservative christan [sic] filth in the event trump wins the election. I have a stolen ar15 [rifle] and a target I refuse to name so I can continue to get away with my plans. Without a specific victim or ability to find the place I hid the gun, there’s not a thing the FBI can do until I complete the attack.”

Sissel was arrested by the FBI this morning and will be in federal court this afternoon.

The Capitol Police is due to provide an update on the man arrested earlier today trying to enter the Capitol smelling of fuel and carrying a flare gun. He had prepared a 25-page manifesto with anti-Israel rhetoric.

In Pennsylvania, the most important swing state with 19 electoral college votes, turnout appears to be high.

Victor Shi, working on the Harris campaign, gleefully tweeted a video of long lines of young women waiting to vote at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia before polls opened at 7am. “Young people are fired up & turning out,” he said. “Gen Z is going to save us.”

Robert Brady, chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, said he was seeing the highest turnout in decades. “I’ve been doing elections for 50 years, been chairman for 40, and this is the highest turnout we’ve ever seen at this point,” he said.

Aubrey Allegretti reporting from Tucson, Arizona

“I got a complaint,” said an election administrator, who was strolling across the tarmac towards a DJ outside a polling station in Tucson, Arizona. “It’s not loud enough.”

The official smiled. Retreating back towards the church where one of the longest lines in the city has formed to vote, the official pointed his finger up, until the volume was adjusted accordingly.

James Anderson, who works in the air force but DJs in his spare time, said: “We’re just here to play music and give feel-good vibes to the voters. I’ve seen some people dancing, but it’s not like being in a club. It’s more about the foot taps and the head nods. That’s good enough for me.”

His generator is already on 40 per cent battery and he has another polling station to get to.

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Cobb county, Georgia

Georgia was the centre of bitter controversy after the 2020 election, with false claims of fraud by the Republicans that led to unrest.

It seems to have galvanised voters this time round. Early voting records were broken when more than four million people cast their ballots before election day.

Brad Raffensperger, the official who took an infamous call from Donald Trump asking him to find the 11,780 extra ballots he needed to win, believes it is likely that election day polling records will also be broken.

More than half a million people had already voted in person by lunchtime. Raffensperger told reporters that if the pace keeps up, he expects a total of 1.2 million people to vote before polls close at 7pm, which would be a record.

As we reported earlier, five emailed bomb hoaxes briefly closed two polling stations in Fulton county, Georgia. Similar threats were directed at other states too, and the authorities now suspect they came from Russia.

Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state who is in charge of organising the election there, said: “We identified the source: it was from Russia.”

The FBI said: “The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far.”

Earlier the agency warned voters not to believe fake news videos circulating with the FBI insignia, which told people not to go to polling stations because of a heightened terrorist threat.

Capitol Police, protecting the Congress buildings in Washington DC, say they have arrested a man who smelt of fuel and was carrying a torch and a flare gun.

He was stopped trying to enter the Capitol Visitor Center, which admits members of the public on tours of the site.

Capitol Police has increased staffing and cancelled leave in preparation for the election, and all eligible 3,300 DC police officers will work 12-hour shifts.

Tom Newton Dunn reporting from Raleigh, North Carolina

In North Carolina, huge efforts have been made to ensure the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene does not stop anyone from voting.

Towns in the far west of the state were devastated storm hit at the end of September, killing 232 in total.

Today pop-up tents have been erected as makeshift polling places. Those forced to move have also been given special dispensation to vote in another county.

Gina Grindstaff, from Burnsville, said: “It’s constantly on your mind, and I don’t see how you could vote without thinking about everything we’ve been through in the last month.”

Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, a retired commander of the US First Army, led a security review of the Capitol after the January 6 insurrection. He told John Pienaar on Times Radio that state authorities were well prepared for any violence.

“Our federal government has given out great warning from our Department of Homeland Security and FBI of the potential for violence. And in most states, appropriate actions have been taken.

“We’ve got two states with National Guard on standby, Oregon and Washington. I think if the violence comes, it will come closer to the counting of the electoral ballots as it did the last time.”

Honoré said there may be protests tonight, but “inside the capacity of most local police to deal with”.

He added: “The bigger issue I worry about is a repeat of 1/6 focused on counting of electoral ballots. We’ve just got to be prepared.”

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Kennesaw, Georgia

“If you’re going to take a photo then I’d better strap Betsy back on,” says Majorie Lyon, 60, referring to her 1963 Smith & Wesson revolver.

She voted early this morning in Kennesaw, Cobb county, because “our country is at stake”.

With her statements about “dumb young people” taken in by Democratic propaganda, Lyon feels like a bit of a relic, much like the souvenirs in her controversial confederacy memorabilia shop.

She won’t say how she voted — “that’s private” — but drops some clear hints when she disparages “these socialistic Democrats who want to dumb everything down so they can control it all”.

For Kamala Harris to take Georgia, Cobb county is crucial. She needs high turnout of Democrats to balance traditional voters like Lyon.

• Georgia results: live tracker

US stocks rallied and bitcoin rose above $70,000 on Tuesday amid uncertainty over the outcome of the presidential election.

By midday trading on Wall Street, the S&P 500 index, regarded as a barometer of the health of the world’s largest economy, had risen 59.41 points, or 1 per cent, to 5,772.10.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq rose by 1.3 per cent to 18,423.85.

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, rose by 3.2 per cent to more than $70,024.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which tracks the currency against six peers, was down by 0.4 per cent at 103.48 during lunchtime trading in New York. The pound gained 0.4 per cent to $1.30.

The moves resemble so-called “Trump trades” in recent weeks whereby investors have favoured stocks and bitcoin over Treasuries.

Aubrey Allegretti reporting from Phoenix, Arizona

A referendum on whether to enshrine the right to abortion in Arizona’s state constitution is driving students to the polls.

In the shade of a university building near downtown Phoenix, a group of “Gen Z activists” are encouraging young people to cast their ballots. They’re given stickers and invited to draw a line in coloured chalk in a long tally stretching down the walkway.

Jocelynn Barraza, 19, a second year criminology student, says the issue of women’s rights motivated her to vote in the presidential race. Abortion is “one of our rights” and not for politicians to take away, she says, adding: “We’re young and it’s our future, not theirs”.

Natanael Payan, a first year student, says men want to protect women’s rights too. “We should be accountable about how they’re affected by what everybody chooses to do as a community,” he says.

Keiran Southern reporting from Las Vegas

Voters lined up to cast their ballots before heading to work on the Las Vegas Strip after polling stations opened at 7am in Nevada.

At the Allegiant Stadium voters were joined by their senator, Jacky Rosen, who is locked in a tough re-election fight against her Republican rival.

If she wins, it is likely that Kamala Harris will also carry the state. Nevada has a high proportion of nonpartisan voters and the Trump campaign believes enough of them will break his way to prove decisive.

Rosen disagrees. She said: “We believe that these voters, they are younger, they are more diverse, they have come to Nevada for opportunity and they know the investments we have made and we believe we’re going to win those independent voters.”

• Nevada results: live tracker

Several arrests have been made for election day violence and threats to polling officials.

The FBI detained two men in Michigan who made threats in the run-up to election day, the Detroit News reported.

In upstate New York a man was arrested for threatening to burn down a polling site after he was told his registration was not current.

He went to vote in the town of Fowler near the Canadian border at about 6.30am, the New York State Police said. He was told he was ineligible to vote because he had not re-registered after being released from prison.

He threatened to return with a gun or to burn the place down, police said. The man fled but was later picked up by state police and brought in for questioning.

Louise Callaghan reporting from Palm Beach, Florida

Police in Palm Beach have shut down several roads around Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.

A helicopter buzzed overhead as I took a photo, prompting a woman near me who had just walked out of her Pilates class to exclaim that the sound was giving her a headache.

Trump is not universally popular here and many locals have told me they are going to hide out at home today away from the visiting hordes.

Samuel Lovett reporting from Kenosha, Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, the Democrats are eyeing three crucial counties that surround Milwaukee: Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington.

The “WOW” counties used to be staunchly Republican. Barack Obama famously struggled to make any inroads here as he surged to statewide victory in 2008.

Now they are no longer a safe bet. Suburbs that once generated 30 and 40-point landslides voted by just single-digit margins for Trump in the last election.

Jonathan Kasparek, a politics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says voters here are “more affluent” and better educated than their counterparts in the state’s rural regions.

“They are sceptical of Trump and the political and economic chaos he causes,” Kasparek said. “They have shifted enough to the Democrats that they could make the difference in a statewide race, even if it’s just 5,000 votes here, 5,000 votes there.”

• Wisconsin results: live tracker

A judge has granted a request by election officials in Cambria county, Pennsylvania, to extend voting by two hours until 10pm.

Earlier, technical problems with electronic voting machines meant that voters were asked either to put paper ballots in a lock box, to be scanned later, or to come back later in the day.

Separately in New York, officials said problems with voting machines in Queens had been resolved and there were no delays.

Hugh Tomlinson reporting from Detroit, Michigan

More encouraging signs for Harris in Detroit’s majority black neighbourhood of Green Acres, where a DJ was spinning tunes outside a polling station and a group of women were dancing in the street in support of the vice-president.

“Let’s go, yo,” one woman called, fist-bumping a man on his way into the station at Pasteur Elementary School, a few blocks from Eight Mile Road.

Turnout is steady here and everyone we spoke to was voting Democrat.

“You know I’m voting for Harris,” said Patricia Harrington, 60, who was accompanied by her daughter, Nietra, a first-time voter. “Women’s rights are very important at this election. I’m confident, because we need this change.”

Harrington said she knew young black men who had been tempted by Trump. “If you a man against women then of course you’re going to vote for Trump,” she said. “That’s some BS.”

After voting, Trump told reporters he feels “very confident” and that he went into election day “with a very big lead” despite knife-edge opinion polls.

He said crime was “through the roof” — it is actually declining nationwide — and he thought immigration was “the number one issue” for voters, claiming there were “13,000-plus murderers allowed to roam in our country”.

Asked if he might concede tonight, Trump replied: “I’m hearing states where I’m up by a lot, but they won’t know the result for a long time.”

Asked if this was his last presidential campaign, he replied: “I would think so.” He said he was “sad, but very fulfilled. We’ve had a great campaign.”

Trump will spend election night at his Florida estate, and said there will be “a very special group of people at Mar-a-Lago”, with others at the Palm Beach Convention Center.

Donald Trump has arrived to cast his vote at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center in Palm Beach, Florida, accompanied by his wife, Melania.

The polling station is just under four miles from his Mar-a-Lago home.

Trump officially moved his residency to Florida in late 2019 and since then has voted at several sites in Palm Beach County.

In 2020, during the pandemic, Trump voted early in the presidential election, casting his ballot on October 24 at the main library.

Kamala Harris will have a “big family dinner” — an election night tradition, she says — before going to an election watch party on the campus of her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington DC.

She described her plans on the Pittsburgh-based radio show The Big K Morning Show with Larry Richert on Tuesday morning.

“I will be at my alma mater, at Howard University,” she said. “And before that, I have a tradition of having dinner with my family and so we will do that. I have a lot of my family staying with us.

“And during the day, I’ll be all day talking with folks and reminding them to get out to vote.”

Harris is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s children from his first marriage: Cole, 29, and Ella, 25. She has one sister, Maya Harris, whose husband Tony West is one of the vice-president’s closest advisers.

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Cobb county, Georgia

As a key driver in the gains that propelled Joe Biden to a historic win in Georgia in 2020, Cobb county north of Atlanta is one of the most watched election spots.

Once a firmly Republican area, it has become more racially diverse with affluent, educated voters who have pushed the momentum towards the Democrats.

Desiree Watson, 62, says even more change is needed. She begins to cry outside the Bridge Pointe Church after explaining that police harassment of her 11-year-old grandson, following a fight with another pupil at school, is driving her vote for Kamala Harris.

“We need the Democrats in to fix the police. Things have changed a lot since I moved from New Orleans as a young woman, but not enough. There’s still racism, they’re more skewed to whites. It’s just more under the carpet now. But the racism is still there. Kamala can fix it.”

• Georgia results: live tracker

Louise Callaghan reporting from Palm Beach, Florida

Palm Beach might be known as the centre of Republican power in the US, but there are a lot of Democrats who live here too.

Suzanne Ainslie, a youthful 70-year-old estate agent, was manning a stall with two friends opposite a polling station, encouraging voters to vote for abortion rights to be encoded in Florida law in a referendum held on the same day as the presidential election.

It would repeal Florida’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — before many women know they’re pregnant — which came into effect in May.

A local priest had come by earlier and told them they were going to hell. Yet she remained positive.
“It’s going to be close,” she said. “I know a ton of Republicans who are voting yes on this.”

Samuel Lovett reporting from Salem Lakes, Wisconsin

Brett Krueger has voted since he was 18 but this year simply ran out of time to register before election day. “I’ve been very busy,” he said.

Fortunately, on-the-day registration is permitted in Wisconsin, meaning people like Krueger can turn up to their nearest polling station, sign a handful of documents and cast their vote.

“I’d wanted to vote early so I’m grateful I can register on the day,” Krueger, 37, said.

Of the roughly 300 people who had cast their ballot so far here in Salem Lakes, around a sixth registered to vote today, according to Chris Rainey, the chief election inspector.

It’s one of the reasons why Wisconsin has above-average turnout rates. In the last election, 72.3 per cent of the state population voted, reaching as high as 90 per cent in some counties.

• Wisconsin results: live tracker

The FBI has warned voters not to believe two fake news clips used “in promoting false narratives surrounding the election”.

The first video tells Americans to vote remotely, because of a supposed high terrorism threat at polling stations. “This video is not authentic and does not accurately represent the current threat posture or polling location safety,” the FBI said in a statement on Tuesday morning.

The second hoax video falsely claims that managers of five prisons in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona rigged inmate voting and colluded with a political party.

The FBI said: “Attempts to deceive the public with false content about FBI threat assessments and activities aim to undermine our democratic process and erode trust in the electoral system. The FBI encourages everyone to seek election and voting information from reliable sources, such as your local election office.”

New York City is also experiencing technical issues with its polling machines, officials said.

Vinnie Ignizio, the deputy executive director of New York’s board of elections, told the New York Daily News that some scanners in the borough of Queens have been “kicking ballots out,” requiring them to be scanned several times for votes to be recorded.

Technicians have been sent to try to resolve the problem.

Louise Callaghan reporting from Palm Beach, Florida

At Green’s luncheonette, a cosy breakfast spot in Palm Beach, Charlene Haroche, 82, a retired businesswoman and widow of a travel mogul, said that though she has been a member of the Mar-a-Lago club for years, she hadn’t secured a spot there for tonight’s election festivities, where around 700 guests are expected to attend.

“I tried to get in but it’s full,” she said. “I’m going on Thursday for a massage with my granddaughter instead.”

Election officials in Fulton county in Georgia are seeking an extension of voting hours after five hoax bomb threats were called in to polling stations.

All of the sites were swept, and no devices were found. Polling has resumed, but there was a 30 minute delay, so officials are asking for extended hours beyond the scheduled 7pm close.

In 2020 Joe Biden won Georgia by 11,779 votes out of a total of nearly five million.

Earlier a software problem in electronic voting machines led to delays Cambria county, Pennsylvania. Paper ballots are being accepted, but officials asked a court for an extension until 10pm so that no one is denied the chance to vote.

Hugh Tomlinson reporting from Dearborn, Michigan

Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, is home to several car factories and Biden’s effort to force Americans to switch to electric vehicles is deeply unpopular here.

Sadiq Musleh, who works for Jeep, exited the polling station hand-in-hand with his young daughter and shouting “Donald Trump”. His family is Yemeni but he said that his vote was driven by the economy and inflation, underscoring the headwinds that Harris faces.

“Electric vehicles killed us,” he said of Biden’s EV mandate, which Harris has tried to distance herself from. Production has slowed down at his plant, he said. “The economy is bad. People can’t live a normal life, you’ve got to find two, three jobs so you can live.”

Hugh Tomlinson reporting from Dearborn, Michigan

Palestinian and Lebanese flags have been hung outside homes in the streets around another Dearborn polling station at Woodworth Middle School where a steady stream of voters is arriving.

Here too, the anger at Harris and Biden for failing to rein in Israel and halt the Middle East conflict is palpable. “I would vote for anybody who will stop the war,” said Osmant Mohammed, who is retired.

He cast his ballot for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whose share of the vote could be decisive in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

• Michigan results: live tracker

It’s just after 10am on the east coast, 7am on the west, and polls are now open in California, Oregon, Idaho, and the swing state of Nevada.

All polling stations in the Lower 48 — the contiguous states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii — are now open.

Samuel Lovett reporting from Wheatland, Wisconsin

“I’m voting for Trump,” says Lisa Sahakyan, 69, as she leans out the window of her blue minivan on her way home. “You won’t catch me supporting those progressive nitwits.”

Not all are quite as expressive here in Wheatland, a rural town in southern Wisconsin, but it’s the former president’s name who keeps popping up.

Outside the polling station, an old-fashioned town hall, several voters cited the economy and security as the main reason they were supporting Trump, arguing that America had been a safer and more prosperous country under his administration.

Lori Jennifer, a 49-year-old insurance worker, shared these sentiments and insisted she was voting for “policy, not personality”. She said: “It’s a tough pill to swallow. I make more money now than four years ago but my standard of living has declined. I’m trusting Trump to improve things again.”

Pennsylvania is now having some problems with polling stations, and Cambria county is requesting extended opening hours to compensate for the delays.

Technicians are on their way to try and fix the machines, Ron Repak, the county solicitor, said.

“The Cambria county board of election learned early this morning that a software malfunction in the county’s electronic voting system has prevented voters from scanning their ballots,” Repak said.

“This should not discourage voters from voting at their voting precincts. The board has filed a court order extending the time to vote within Cambria county. No one should be turned away from the polls if they wish to cast their vote.”

Cambria county is a rural area, with its county seat, Ebensburg, 70 miles east of Pittsburgh. It was a swing county, within the swing state, until 2012. Donald Trump has won both recent elections in the state.

Tom Newton Dunn reporting from Raleigh, North Carolina

It’s 9.30am, and turnout has been strong across North Carolina during the early morning rush. Both campaigns are buoyed by it, with long lines in both Harris and Trump areas from dawn.

In central Raleigh’s Precinct 7 polling place, 157 voters passed through during the first hour alone.
“These are really good numbers,” Rawlin Kibbe, the precinct’s chief judge said.

North Carolina had already seen a tidal wave of early voting. By yesterday, 4.4 million had cast their ballot — 57 per cent of all eligible voters — in the key swing state, which has 16 electoral votes up for grabs.

At least a million more are expected to vote today, which would break the state’s turnout record.

JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, has arrived at his polling station in Cincinnati, Ohio to cast his vote.

Trump will vote later today in Florida.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have already voted earlier this week — Harris in California, Walz in Minnesota.

Hugh Tomlinson reporting from Dearborn, Michigan

In Dearborn there are early signs of a protest vote against Harris and Biden by the large Arab American and Muslim community.

“You had to pick the best of the worst. I had to go with one of them and it wasn’t going to be Harris,” Iman Wahab, a loan officer, said. “I really don’t want to make this choice but I ended up voting for Trump. He’s the better of the two.”

Wahab has family in Lebanon and said the whole community had been traumatised. “Kamala, if she wanted to stop it she could do something right now. She’s vice president,” she said. “Give me a break.”

Taufiq left his ballot blank in protest. He said Biden’s support for Israel while Gaza deaths soared was “dehumanising”.

“Why this disparity between certain people against other people? Do you think it’s right?” he said. He too has family in Lebanon.

Flash flooding has hit parts of St Louis County in Missouri, forcing at least one polling station to close. Seven inches of rain have fallen over the past 24 hours, pushing Deer Creek to burst its banks and flood the St Louis neighbourhoods of Maplewood, Brentwood, and Webster Groves.

Two interstates running through St Louis are flooded. One polling station, Brookdale Farms in Eureka, 30 miles southwest of downtown St Louis, has closed. Sheriffs are directing voters to Hillsboro, 20 miles away.

“Voters have yelled at deputies on flash flood assignments suggesting that they are intentionally suppressing votes,” Jefferson County sheriffs wrote on Facebook.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. We are trying to keep everyone updated on road closures so you can go around and vote.”

St Louis sits on the Mississippi, and is prone to flooding, with six major floods since 2008.

The results will be something of the choice between a rock and hard place for the EU.

Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate , is most definitely the EU’s preferred option as next American president but whoever wins there are difficult times ahead.

Katarina Barley, a senior German Christian Democrat MEP and vice-president of the European parliament, is rooting for Harris but warned that she “will not bring us back the good old Bill Clinton-EU relationship”.

A new Democrat administration would, as under Joe Biden, continue the rivalry for world superpower status with China that is rattling the Europeans. When it comes to Beijing, Washington is from Mars and Brussels is from Venus.

“The EU should not subscribe to an idea of a zero-sum game whereby there can only be one winner, in a binary contest between the US and China,” an internal Brussels diplomatic policy paper noted last year. “Systemic rivalry … must not deter the EU from maintaining open channels of communication and seeking constructive cooperation with China.”

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Atlanta, Georgia

Voting for Harris is the pretty consistent theme at this polling station in Park Tavern, central Atlanta, an affluent and professional area that is a shoo in for the Democrats.

But there’s a second theme too. Rebekah Phelps, 30, an elementary school teacher, explains: “It really leaves a bitter taste, this election. The toxicity and division. I’m engaged in the issues, I’m voting Kamala, but I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

She and her partner, Steven Gonzales, 35, have real concerns of disorder if the election is close. He adds: “There’s just so much aggression, a really visceral nature to it. When it’s over we need to rebuild. We’re all one country, we’re all neighbours after all.”

Kamala Harris is expected to romp it home in central Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold in the crucial swing state of Georgia.

Melanie Simmonds, 51, summed up the feelings of many voters in the queue when asked what turned her off Donald Trump: “How much time you got? Hah! I don’t have that much time.”

She came straight to the polling station shortly after 7am, after finishing a shift as a security guard.

“I’m always excited to vote,” she said. “If we want changes everybody has to vote. We can’t do the wrong thing, we can’t have the wrong person in office. Kamala, she’s going to do stuff, she’s going to help us. I know it.

European support for Harris and nervousness over Trump is not universal. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, has been a frequent flyer across the Atlantic, not to Biden’s White House but to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion.

Writing on X, the Hungarian leader trumpeted that “just two days after the American elections” he would be hosting a European summit on Thursday of more than 40 leaders in Budapest, the largest diplomatic event in his country’s history.

“Fasten your seatbelts,” he posted last night.

Orban, and many anti-establishment nationalist and Eurosceptic parties who are ascendant in elections across Europe, are Trump admirers. “I will celebrate Trump’s victory with bottles of champagne,” he said last month.

There are fears that Orban and the nationalist camp will add their voices to Trump if he contests the election result, setting a new anti-democratic trend with big implications for European politics.

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Atlanta, Georgia

“This election”, declares Steven Wallace, 74, “is the choice between a jackass and a laughing hyena. You’re from England? I wish we could have a King or Queen so we don’t have to do this every four years.”

Wallace’s election fatigue springs from the saturated news cycle and the divisive debates. Nonetheless he still holds a strong desire to vote. He was third in line at 7am this morning at Park Tavern, one of central Atlanta’s busiest polling stations, accompanying his grandson, Aidan Tally, 20, who was voting for the first time.

Tally, who began queuing before the sun was up, voted independent because “the others are like adult toddlers”.

Wallace, a retired real estate agent, is an outlier in this Democratic stronghold because, contrary to those canvassed in the queue around him, he was voting for Donald Trump.

“He’s important for our foreign policy. No one is afraid of him.”

It’s now past 8am on the east coast, and a further ten states are opening their polling stations — among them Wisconsin, the fifth of seven swing states to start voting.

Kenosha County used to be a reliably Democratic stronghold, but that has changed. Hillary Clinton clung on by just 255 votes in 2016. Donald Trump flipped it four years later, winning by 2,779.

That is partly due to the local loss of industry: a Chrysler car factory closed in 2010, which ended more than 100 years of automaking in the county. Later, in 2020, Kenosha was rocked by riots after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man.

This civil unrest and lingering economic disaffection led many to “embrace” Trump’s promises to “restore law and order”, according to Jonathan Kasparek, a politics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

It is not just the election being contested today: votes are being cast today on a wide range of issues, from abortion access to gun control, marijuana legislation and property taxes.

And then there’s Congress: the entire House of Representatives is up for re-election, and a third of Senate seats.

The Senate hangs in the balance, with Democrats at present holding a 51-49 advantage. One of the closest-watched races is in deep-blue Maryland, where for years Senate races have often been landslides for Democratic incumbents against little-known Republicans.

That’s not the case with the race this year. Larry Hogan, a popular Republican who won two terms as governor, is their most competitive candidate in years in the race to replace a retiring Democratic senator, Ben Cardin.

He is still facing an uphill battle against his Democrat rival, Angela Alsobrooks, the county executive of Prince George’s County, who could make history as the state’s first black senator.

In the House of Representatives, fewer than 50 of the 435 seats up for grabs are considered competitive races. Republicans hold a slim majority with 220 seats to the Democrats’ 212, with three vacancies. Whichever party controls the Senate and the House will wield enormous influence over the president’s agenda.

Four years ago Donald Trump disputed the election results, claiming fraud in key states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

This culminated in violent scenes in the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, the day the results were certified by Congress.

With polls suggesting the election is too close to call, many Americans are worried the country could see political violence once again.

A YouGov poll of voters in key states shows that most Americans, regardless of which candidate they support, are expecting violence.

Donald Trump is expected to vote this morning at a smart sports centre a few miles north of his Mar-a-Lago club on Palm Beach.

Trump has voted twice before at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center, while Melania Trump has voted there three times. She was spotted leaving New York with their son Barron yesterday, and may be intending to vote with her husband this morning.

The polling station opened at 7am and voters began queuing up outside at 6:30am, forming a line that snaked along a palm-lined walkway and beneath a clock tower beside clay tennis courts. It was headed by a woman who was reading the Wall Street Journal, seated at the door of what is normally a dance and workout studio.

An update from Indiana: the issue with the voting machines in Hamilton County, north of Indianapolis, has now been fixed.

It seems that an updated piece of code needed to be sent, and it has been done. Normal voting has resumed.

“All someone had to do was push a button to fix it,” tweeted the local Fox 59 news reporter Daniel Miller. “Poll workers were not aware of the issue during training, because they didn’t think it would be a problem.

“The issue has been fixed at all locations and everything is running smoothly right now.”

Tom Newton Dunn reporting from Raleigh, North Carolina

Polling has opened in central Raleigh, North Carolina, and Savannah Ranson is one of the very first to vote in any of the seven swing states.

The 23-year-old steakhouse cook was the first in line outside Edenton Street United Methodist Church — which today is Wake County’s Precinct 7 polling place.

She has been here since 5.25am. “I just really wanted to get in line and vote on election day,” she said.

“Today means a lot to me. I get to exercise my vote and my voice is heard. I’m hoping there will be the first female president of the United States.”

Needless to say, she voted for Harris. She wasn’t alone. Dawn is only just breaking here, and 20 people were already queuing behind her.

The clocks have just struck 7am on the east coast, and 12 more states are opening their polls.
Voters in the nation’s capital can also begin casting their ballots.

All polling stations on the east coast are now open, from Florida to Maine, and several midwest states are now open: among them Michigan, a swing state. Michigan — where Donald Trump closed his campaign last night — has the second-most electoral college votes up for grabs, at 15, after Pennsylvania’s 19.

Americans living in four of the seven swing states can now begin voting: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina.

There have been reports of issues with polling machines after a poll worker in Hamilton County, Indiana, said that they were having technical problems.

Polls opened 30 minutes ago as scheduled, at 6am, but queues of people are forming as the staff try to resolve the glitch.

A local Fox News reporter said that 80 people were standing outside the John W. Hensel Government Center in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis.

Hamilton County is just north of Indianapolis, and has the fourth largest population of any Indiana county. Indiana is one of the most solidly Republican states in the county.

Since 1940 it has only voted Democratic twice: in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won a landslide over Barry Goldwater, and in 2008, when Indiana voters chose Barack Obama over John McCain.

It’s just turned 6:30am on the east coast, and polls have opened in three more states: Ohio, West Virginia, and North Carolina. That takes the total to 12.

North Carolina is the first swing state to open its polls today. It has voted Republican in all but one presidential election from 1980 onwards — it backed Barack Obama in 2008 — but recently things have been close. It carries 16 electoral college votes.

Polls close in North Carolina at 7:30pm Eastern Time, and we expect the results will come through relatively swiftly: it’s one of the ones to give pundits an early sense of the way the vote is heading.

British gamblers have placed £187 million in bets on the US election, Betfair have reported, with pundits in the UK believing that Donald Trump will win.

The London-based bookies said that they had seen £125 million bet on Trump, and £46 million on Kamala Harris. Trump is at 8/13, Betfair said, with Harris at 8/5.

British gamblers have made Trump the favourite to win five of the seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.

Betfair has seen a surge in cash wagered on Trump in the last week: £65.7 million for Trump, versus £12.7 million for Harris.

US gamblers have also put their money on Trump in recent weeks, although Harris gained a slight edge on PredictIt overnight. Trump maintained a lead on Polymarket.

Samuel Lovett reporting in Kenosha County, Wisconsin

Shawn Reilly has spent most of his life voting Republican. For the past decade, he’s also served as the mayor of Waukesha, a traditionally red city outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Today, however, he will be casting his ballot for Kamala Harris — not out of love for the Democrats, but a deep resentment of Donald Trump.

Aggrieved by the former president’s “chaotic” politics, his involvement in the January 6 riots and his “revengeful mindset”, Reilly told the Times that the prospect of Trump serving a second term was “absolutely horrid”.

“I can’t vote for him,” he added. “Being able to self-govern your own country is very important. That means you don’t support dictators, you don’t support authoritarian governments. If Trump is our president again, I fear what will happen.”

Donald Trump plans to cast his vote at a polling station in Palm Beach, Florida, today, a source familiar with his schedule told the Associated Press.

He is expected to watch the results come in at his Mar-a-Lago estate. His campaign is expected to host an election watch party at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach in the evening.

Kamala Harris is expected to spend election night at Howard University in Washington DC. Howard, one of America’s historically black colleges, is her alma mater, and the vice-president has spoken about the impact it had on her identity and her desire to pursue a career as a lawyer.

Election Day is not a federal holiday in the United States and there is no federal law forcing bosses to give their staff paid time off to vote, to the chagrin of many.

It is, however, a holiday for nine states: Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Virginia.

Banks are open, as is the stock market and federal reserve. The post office is working as usual.
Schools are closed, however, as many are being used as polling stations.

The American vote is being anxiously watched in Europe. “There is plenty of Trump fear and paranoia around,” one European diplomat said.

Sir Keir Starmer will be among 43 leaders in the Hungarian capital for a summit of the European Political Community, talks that will be overshadowed by events in America.

European Union leaders will discuss the emerging results, dominated by fears of a republican victory, over dinner on Thursday night in Budapest. There is added anxiety over Viktor Orban, their host, who is Trump’s most (if not only) enthusiastic supporter and who may well rock the boat if the Republican calls into question a narrow win for Kamala Harris.

The prospect of a victory for Donald Trump alarms the EU because of fears that he will undermine Ukraine and damage European economies with the fallout of rivalry with China.

It’s 6am on the east coast, and eight more states have now opened the polls, taking the total to nine — Vermont was first off the mark at 5am.

Their neighbouring states of New Hampshire and New York have now opened, in addition to Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey and Virginia.

Some more central states have also unlocked the polls: those in Indiana and Kentucky can now begin casting their votes.

For the past few months, Trump and Harris have criss-crossed the seven battleground states holding dozens of campaign rallies and events as they try to win over the few remaining undecided voters there.

The US electoral college system dictates that the winner of each state takes all of its electoral votes, meaning the final result will almost certainly come down to the swing states.

In 2020, Biden flipped five of them: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Biden also held Nevada while Trump won North Carolina. Shifting demographics and a realignment of support for both parties makes it hard to predict which candidate these all-important seven races will elect in this year.

On Halloween, both Trump and Harris descended on Arizona to court voters and warn of the dangers of their opponent.

Speaking just 5.7 miles apart, one local TV anchor quipped: “They could have probably done a debate if they’d wanted to.”

At a large open-air rally in Phoenix, ceiling fans kept the crowds cool while Harris said of Trump: “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interest and make decisions accordingly.”

Trump appeared on the Tucker Carlson Live Tour and chose an indoor venue on his seventh trip of the campaign to the Grand Canyon state. He called the Democrats “a bunch of cheats” and said immigration and border security were “the single biggest issue” for voters.

The first polls have opened in Vermont, where it is possible to vote as early as 5am local time (10am UK time).

Voting times vary by state and across several time zones. Most of the eastern states, including New York and Virginia will start voting from 6am Eastern Time, or 11am UK time.

Channel 4 has a colourful lineup of panellists, including the Succession star Brian Cox, the former porn star Stormy Daniels and the former prime minister Boris Johnson. Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Emily Maitlis will anchor the show.

The BBC’s North America editor Sarah Smith and the senior North America correspondent Gary O’Donoghue will be reporting from the two parties’ election headquarters.

ITV has Julie Etchingham leading the coverage from the US, with the newsreader Tom Bradby anchoring its show and Robert Moore and Anushka Asthana providing analysis.

Radio 4, Radio 5 and BBC World Service will simulcast a programme through the night from Washington DC, presented by Nuala McGovern and Ros Atkins.

On Times Radio, expert analysis is provided by Andrew Neil and John Pienaar. Calum Macdonald will host overnight coverage, with Aasmah Mir and Stig Abell taking over on Times Radio Breakfast from 6am.

• Read in full: Our experts on how to follow the US results as they come in

Immigration and abortion are literally on the ballot paper in Arizona. Both issues have been salient during this campaign, in a state bordering Mexico and that has a large Hispanic population, which is decreasingly Catholic.

Supporters of the two main parties have put forward proposals to amend the state constitution to motivate voters to turn up and vote in the presidential, House and Senate races.

Proposition 314 would boost local authorities’ responsibilities for immigration enforcement, while Proposition 139 would enshrine the fundamental right to abortion at a state level after the US Supreme Court struck down the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.

Russian influencers have tried to sow false claims of election fraud in Arizona, according to the FBI.

The agency said that a video wrongly depicted testimony about “fake overseas ballots” in favour of Kamala Harris.

Those allegations are “false” but were “manufactured and amplified” by “Russian influence actors”, an FBI statement released on Monday said.

Voters were warned that foreign interference was likely to continue on election day and beyond.

The FBI said “additional manufactured content” designed to undermine public confidence in election results and stoke division was likely to be released.

Iran has also carried out cyber activities designed to compromise Donald Trump’s campaign, the FBI added.

Gambling odds are not necessarily predictive but give an indication of the ebbs and flows of the race.

Presidential betting odds on Betfair Exchange show how Trump has gone from rank outsider after losing in 2020 to slight favourite now, according to the gambling markets.

Trump’s odds peaked this summer when he was dramatically shot at on stage and Biden appeared confused in a TV debate.

Since Biden dropped out, Harris has become a slight favourite, although Trump has retaken a small lead in recent weeks.

Judges have rejected attempts by the Republican-led states of Missouri and Texas to block the federal government from monitoring compliance with voting rights laws.

Both states are among 27 that the US Justice Department (DOJ) said it would dispatch staff to to monitor voting locations — as is normal during national elections.

The federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk denied issuing the restraining order that Texas requested but ordered the DOJ to confirm that “no observers” would be at polling locations in the state.

• Could the US election results be contested? Lawyers prepare for scrap

“The court cannot issue a temporary restraining order without further clarification on the distinction between ‘monitoring’ and ‘observing’ on the eve of a consequential election,” Kacsmaryk said.

Sarah Pitlyk, a district judge in Missouri, also denied that state’s temporary restraining order, saying that “the harms that the state of Missouri anticipates are speculative.”

Missouri’s lawsuit claimed that the DOJ had an 11th-hour plan to “displace state election authorities” by sending poll monitors to locations throughout St Louis.

With the final rallies done, the campaigns now rely on their turn-out operations to get supporters to the polls. The Harris campaign has built the more extensive ground operation, with 2,500 paid staff in 353 offices nationwide. Boosted by volunteers, the campaign knocked on 600,000 doors and made three million phone calls in one week last month, according to The New York Times.

There won’t be the traditional news footage of Harris arriving at her local polling station to vote. She posted her ballot to her home state of California a few days ago.

Rather than spend tonight at her campaign HQ in Delaware, which she inherited from President Biden, she will await the results in Washington. She plans to be at an election watch party at her alma mater, Howard University, the historically black college from which she graduated in 1986 with a degree in political science and economics.

As America goes to the polls, the Ukrainian army that has depended so much on Washington’s largesse faces the toughest fight of the Russian invasion so far, losing territory in the east at the fastest rate since Kyiv itself was threatened (Catherine Philp writes). The deployment of thousands of North Korean troops has injected an explosive new component to the conflict, with Moscow increasingly confident of assistance from its foreign allies.

Mounting drone strikes on Ukraine’s cities raise the spectre of another bitterly hard winter, after talks to end tit-for-tat strikes on energy infrastructure were called off when Ukrainian forces crossed Russia’s border into Kursk. That incursion, launched in part to secure a bargaining chip in negotiations that Donald Trump has claimed would end the war in 24 hours, is itself faltering, with at least a third of the territory seized now back in Russian hands.

• Read in full: Ukraine watches nervously as race for White House reaches climax

Hugh Tomlinson reporting in Detroit, Michigan

Michigan’s 15 electoral college votes are central to the blue wall of rust belt states that make up Kamala Harris’s best chance of victory. Donald Trump won here in his shock defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Joe Biden flipped Michigan on his way to ousting Trump and taking the White House four years later.

Harris has faced an uphill struggle in Michigan, however, as several distinct voting blocs shift away from Democrats. Many among the state’s huge Muslim and Arab-American population have said they will not vote in protest at Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

• Michigan results: live tracker

Young black men, once a core Democratic constituency, have also shifted towards Trump as the former president has leaned into the widening gender gap at this election. And Biden’s push to force America to move to electric vehicles is deeply unpopular among auto workers in Motor City.

Oprah Winfrey Lady Gaga appeared at Kamala Harris’s final campaign event in Pennsylvania last night.

Other celebrities attending included the singer Ricky Martin and Fat Joe, a rapper of Puerto Rican descent, who made appeals to Latino voters.

The podcast host Joe Rogan has endorsed Donald Trump for president, writing on social media that his choice had been influenced by “the great and powerful Elon Musk”.

Publicising a link to a long interview with the billionaire Tesla founder, Rogan, 57, wrote on X that Musk “makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way”.

• If Trump wins, buckle up for Elon Musk’s shock therapy

“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” he added.

The podcaster recently interviewed Trump himself, in an episode which received 45 million views on YouTube.

Megan Agnew reporting from Ronkonkoma, New York

The America First Warehouse bills itself as “America’s Most Patriotic Venue”, dripping in Trump memorabilia and enormous flags. In this place, the Maga heart-centre of the area, Trump is the true American hero.

More generally, the warehouse is where supporters congregate socially, in addition to being the engine room of their organised support. Tonight, it will be where his most loyal followers come together to watch the results roll in.

Though New York state is a safe Democratic seat, Long Island is the home of three swing districts which have the potential to flip the House of Representatives (the Democrats need to win four more seats nationwide to do so).

More recently, much of the blue-collar electorate has felt disenfranchised from the liberal politics of nearby New York City and in 2022, Republicans turned all four Long Island districts red.

Down the ballot, this is a pivotal battleground.

Nigel Farage has said that if Trump is beaten in a “clear and decisive” victory for Harris he should accept the result and “play golf at Turnberry”.

The Reform MP made the comments in an interview with the Telegraph at Trump’s home in Palm Beach, in which he also said Harris should pardon Trump in order to “dampen” potential tensions if she wins.

However, he said it was “hypothetical” as he still thinks Trump will win.

Donald Trump has just finished his final campaign rally in the town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was filmed dancing off the stage.

He finished speaking just after 2am local time on the day Americans go to the polls.

During his speech Trump accused his opponent Kamala Harris of “destroying” the US and called her a “terrible vice president”.

“Kamala, you’re horrible at your job. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re a low IQ individual,” he said, echoing the increasingly personal attacks of recent weeks.

In a reference to his former role as host of The Apprentice television show in the US, he added: “Kamala, you’re fired! Get the hell out of here.”

Alistair Dawber reporting from Pennsylvania

The birthplace of the American Republic and the cradle of what politicians call its great experiment with democracy, Pennsylvania is as pivotal in this election as it was in 1776.

Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have spent huge amounts of time and money campaigning for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral college votes.

Democrats will hope that Harris can muster huge numbers of votes in the state’s two big cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Trump is aiming to win big in the vast rural areas and in the large towns, where heavy industry has been replaced over the decades by large numbers of employed and disaffected voters.

For Harris, the stakes in Pennsylvania could not be higher. No Democratic candidate has won the White House without winning Pennsylvania since Harry Truman in 1948 — Harris can triumph without winning here, but it will be very difficult.

• Pennsylvania results: live tracker

Voting rules have changed in Pennsylvania, meaning all ballots, those cast in person or mailed in, must be at counting venues by 8pm on Tuesday night. It means that we should get a result in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but polls indicate it could be very tight, and that could mean legal challenges to the result by the loser — which could take days, or even weeks.

Will Pavia reporting from Palm Beach, Florida

Trump has lived at his Mar-a-Lago resort since leaving the White House and it is where he launched his campaign for the presidency in November 2022.

Palm Beach is an island where the less expensive houses cost about $10 million and where the local population of billionaires numbers about 50. Some of them have pitched in to help Trump as donors and fundraisers.

Trump is expected to vote at a sports centre on Tuesday before watching the results come in from Mar-a-Lago. Later in the evening he is expected to speak at an election viewing party the Trump Campaign is staging at a convention centre on the mainland in West Palm Beach.

Samuel Lovett reporting from Kenosha County, Wisconsin

A former Democratic stronghold, Wisconsin has become one of America’s most closely contested states. In four of the past six elections Wisconsin has been decided by a voting margin of less than one percentage point.

It finally flipped red in 2016, the first time in three decades, as voters from faded industrial and agricultural communities, who had previously turned out for the Democrats, bought into Donald Trump’s promises to “make America great again”.

Wisconsin remains largely split between its blue urban centres — namely Madison and Milwaukee — and red countryside, but it is also home to dozens of 50-50 towns where, four years ago, the count was split by as few as two votes.

• Wisconsin results: live tracker

I’ll be reporting from Kenosha County, which Trump narrowly carried in 2020, as well as Waukesha County, where the Democrats are confident of making significant inroads, aided by a former Republican mayor who is now urging constituents to vote blue.

Tom Newton Dunn reporting from North Carolina

North Carolina is one of the key seven swing states, and has the second-largest number of electoral college votes up for grabs among them (16). It’s a fascinating fight. Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and again in 2020 (but by only 74,000 votes). He’s desperate to hold it and has done four rallies here over the final three days of the campaign.

What’s turned the state into a tight battleground is the arrival of half a million people over the last four years — many to work in the growing tech hub around Raleigh. They largely lean Democrat.

North Carolina also elects a new governor. The Republican candidate Mark Robinson was engulfed in scandal recently when it emerged he called himself a “black Nazi” in posts on a pornography site.

• North Carolina results: live tracker

Fiona Hamilton reporting from Atlanta, Georgia

This is a closely watched swing state because it was so crucial in 2020, when Joe Biden narrowly beat Donald Trump by 12,000 votes. It was a surprise win given it had been a staunchly Republican state between 1996 and 2016.

Trump’s unfounded claims of electoral fraud led to the riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and his attempts to overturn the results in Georgia are the subject of legal proceedings. Polls suggest the results will be extremely tight this time around.

Georgia is key to winning the presidency, as its 16 electoral votes could potentially push either candidate over the finish line.

• Georgia results: live tracker

Delivering his closing pitch at the final rally of his campaign, Trump vowed late on Tuesday to lead the United States to “new heights of glory”.

“With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America — indeed, the world — to new heights of glory,” Trump told the crowd in the early hours of the morning in Grand Rapids, in the swing state of Michigan.

Keiran Southern reporting from the Las Vegas Strip, Nevada

Nevada has voted for the Democratic candidate in six of the past eight presidential elections, including the last four, but the party’s grip appears to be loosening.

The state’s economy has taken a battering and working class voters are feeling the pinch.

Unemployment and gas prices are high, far from encouraging signs for Kamala Harris.

• Nevada results: live tracker

Donald Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips, a policy so attractive in a state reliant on travel and leisure that Harris copied it.

Polls suggest the race in Nevada is essentially dead even. The stakes could scarcely be higher.

The first in-person votes in the 2024 general election were cast in Dixville Notch as part of the tradition of midnight voting early on Tuesday morning.

The New Hampshire township with a population of just six registered voters was split, with three for Harris and three for Trump.

Aubrey Allegretti reporting from Phoenix, Arizona

This sun belt state was ground zero for election result deniers in 2020, who claimed the contest was “stolen” from Donald Trump.

There are significant concerns of a January 6-style revolt locally. As a result, the main centre for checking and counting ballots has been heavily fortified, with snipers posted on nearby roofs.

• What will happen if Trump loses? The threat of civil war examined

Arizona has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, but Joe Biden won it in 2020 by 10,000 votes out of a population of more than 7 million.

After fairly neck-and-neck polling between Harris and Trump, the former president has polled about 2 points ahead over the past fortnight. The prize for whoever wins it is 11 electoral college votes, in their pursuit of a total of 270 and the presidency.

• Arizona results: live tracker

The polls have been exceedingly tight since Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in July. As of last week, Harris had a one-point lead in the national popular vote, which projects the overall number of ballots cast across the country.

In the seven battleground states that are likely to determine the winner, Harris was ahead in Wisconsin and Michigan, according to an average of every statewide poll conducted in the past three weeks. Trump was slightly ahead in Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. It would only take a small polling error in either direction to swing the race decisively.

The first polls close at 6pm ET (11pm GMT) in the pro-Trump states of Indiana and Kentucky. Seven more states close their polls at 7pm ET (midnight GMT), including the key battleground of Georgia, by which time a clearer picture of the race will begin to emerge. By 8pm (1am GMT), results from a swathe of eastern and central states are likely to have been called.

Pennsylvania, the state that many experts believe will decide the presidency, could be declared for Trump or Harris in the early hours of Wednesday morning ET should a clear winner materialise. If the race is tight, we could be waiting for days for a winner to be confirmed.

Welcome to The Times’s live coverage of today’s US presidential election. Our reporters will be filing updates and analysis from Washington, Mar-a-Lago in Florida and New York, along with all seven battleground states that are likely to determine the race.

After an eventful campaign during which Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts, the race remains in the balance. Since Kamala Harris replaced President Biden as her party’s nominee in July, she has largely restored the Democratic coalition and remained neck-and-neck with Trump in the polls.