US Election Day: Harris vs Trump [UPDATE]

15:32

In Florida, the majority of the state's registered voters have already cast their ballots early, including vote-by-mail and early in-person voting, according to a University of Florida analysis of state data.

15:11

Polling stations will close completely in 6 states starting at 19:00 EST.

13:14

In the first vote on Election Day in Dixville Notch, the presidential vote was tied 3-3. Dixville Notch, a tiny town in New Hampshire, has a tradition since 1960 of being the first in the country to complete in-person voting. The town's six electors began voting at midnight, and the counting was completed 15 minutes later.

12:15

The Associated Press has been counting national, state and local election results since 1848. In general, the process is the same today as it was then: counting reporters collect local election results as soon as the polls close and then submit those results to AP for collation, verification and reporting. This year, AP will be counting votes in approximately 5,000 competitive races across the United States, from presidential and congressional races to state legislative and ballot measures.

08:57

The 2024 US presidential election will take place today, 5 November. Former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump will run against current Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. In July, President Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy for the 2024 elections, supporting his Vice President Kamala Harris.

All the Democratic Party delegates previously pledged to Biden were free to vote for whomever they chose at the Democratic National Convention, as the candidate they had pledged during the primary process was no longer running. The vast majority voted for Harris, so she became the presidential candidate.

The US Constitution has three basic requirements for presidential candidates: individuals must be a US citizen by birth, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the country for 14 years. There are some exceptions to the 14-year residency requirement for members of the US armed forces.

Primaries and caucuses are the first step in the process by determining the support of political parties for candidates. They take place at the state level in the early spring of the election year. If a candidate is not running as an independent, he or she will register to run for the political party of the state where he or she lives.

As in regular elections, primaries are held by secret ballot, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Caucuses are more complicated. In states where they are used, a day is set when members of political parties meet to decide together by public vote which candidate they want to represent them. Hundreds of such meetings take place when the state holds its caucuses.

After all the primaries and caucuses at the state level, political parties hold national conventions to formally select the candidate who will represent them in the November elections, as well as his or her running mate.

At the conventions, delegates from each of the 50 US states come together to vote for a presidential candidate. To win, a candidate needs a simple majority of the delegates' votes.

The election of the US president is not determined by a majority vote, but is ultimately decided by the Electoral College, which consists of 538 electors (one elector for each member of the US Congress, plus three from the District of Columbia).

To win an election, a simple majority of at least 270 electoral votes is required.

These votes are allocated based on geography and population. Moreover, each US state is allocated one electoral vote per member of the congressional delegation. This means that regardless of population size, each state automatically has three electoral votes, as all states have two US senators and at least one seat in the House of Representatives.

The number of people who make up a state's congressional delegation depends on its population. California has the most votes with 54, while Vermont, for example, has a minimum of three. Except Maine and Nebraska, which have a form of proportional representation, a candidate wins all the votes in a state if he or she wins a majority there.