Kamala Harris, Donald Trump
Video DUS election 2024 polls are open across the country, including the seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are going head-to-head in a race that remains too close to call.
Harris and Trump have made their final appeals to voters in key battleground states, stressing that the stakes of the November 5 vote could not be higher.
Recent polls show the candidates in a neck-and-neck battle nationally and in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan.
2m ago (21:00 GMT)
Here’s what has happened so far
Let’s get you up to speed on the latest developments on US Election Day 2024:
Voter turnout has been high with long lines reported at polling stations across the US.
Republican voters appear to have cast early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by the party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump, to counter the Democrats’ longstanding advantage in the early vote.
Trump and the Democratic Party’s candidate, Kamala Harris, have taken to social media several times to urge their supporters to cast their ballots.
Trump has repeated misleading talking points about the pace of counting ballots in the US, saying that in France, counting is finished at 10pm. This comparison cannot be made because the 2022 election in France was a single contest, and elections are centralised there, unlike the US, where states and municipalities run them.
The FBI says it is aware of bomb threats against several polling places in Georgia, adding that they are not credible and they likely originated from foreign actors seeking to influence the US elections.
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2m ago (21:00 GMT)
Why counting US votes takes time, is not a sign of fraud
Just hours after the polls closed in the 2020 US presidential election, as millions of votes were still being counted, Trump delivered an extraordinary address.
“We were getting ready to win this election – frankly, we did win this election,” the then-president told reporters in the early morning hours after Election Day, alleging that “a major fraud” was being committed.
“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list,” he said.
Trump’s premature — and false — claim of victory over his Democratic challenger Biden, who ultimately won the 2020 election, capped weeks of untrue voter fraud allegations made by the Republican incumbent.
Now, as the 2024 race between Trump and Harris remains too close to call, experts again are stressing that it could take days to count the votes — and that is not a sign of malfeasance.
“Just like in 2020, it’s entirely normal for vote counting to take several days,” Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the voting rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), told Al Jazeera.
7m ago (20:55 GMT)
Harris makes stop at Democratic Party headquarters
Harris has thanked workers at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC during an unscheduled Election Day stop.
“I decided to pop in!” she said.
Briefly speaking to workers there, Harris took over the mobile phone from one volunteer making last minute calls to voters.
“Alexandria, this is Kamala Harris,” she said, to cheers. “Have you voted already? You did, thank you!”
The campaign also said Harris has made radio call ins to local stations in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina today.
12m ago (20:50 GMT)
Are voters confident in the electoral process?
Reporting from Waunakee, Wisconsin
Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election created huge controversy in 2020, eventually culminating in the January 6 US Capitol riot. And the former president has refused to back down on the issue, even as it puts off many voters.
Karin Alwin, a 49-year-old industrial engineer and a Girl Scouts leader, says she’s “extremely confident” in the US electoral process.
“I think everything that’s been brought up is insane,” she says. “We don’t have any data … saying any of those claims are valid.”
Alwin says that her scout troop have discussed the election, and how “lucky” Americans are to have the right to vote. “My kids are saying they’re really happy today is Election Day because they are done with the political ads,” she adds.
But Trump’s repeated insinuations that the elections are not free and fair have led to Republicans becoming fixated in their efforts to find evidence of voter fraud, which has worried some voters.
“I was confident about [the electoral process] four years ago,” says Katie Lowery, a 47-year-old engineer. “And now I feel like there have been changes for the worse. [I’m concerned about] the people who are doing some of the ballot counting and the role and agenda they have – and the chaos that they have created.”
Katie Lowery
Katie Lowery, outside a polling place in Waunakee, Wisconsin, says she is now worried about the agenda of some of those who will be monitoring the ballot counting.
17m ago (20:45 GMT)
Rudy Giuliani pulls up at Florida poll in the convertible judge ordered him to turn over
Rudy Giuliani turned up at Trump’s Florida polling station in a Mercedes convertible similar to the one he was ordered to surrender to the Georgia poll workers he defamed.
The former New York City mayor and Trump confidante was ordered by a federal judge to turn over his Manhattan apartment, jewellery and other valuable possessions, including the convertible, to Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, whom he falsely accused of rigging votes in Georgia after the 2020 election.
Giuliani filed for bankruptcy last year, shortly after he was ordered to pay $148m to the two women.
But lawyers who have been trying to collect on the judgement recently found that many of the assets the court had ordered Giuliani to turn over were no longer at the Manhattan apartment after Giuliani moved them to Florida, the New York Times reported.
That included the convertible Giuliani was photographed in on Tuesday.
22m ago (20:40 GMT)
The swing state of Pennsylvania, at a glance
It’s fair to say that most – if not all – eyes are on the Pennsylvania race, so here’s what you need to know about the swing state:
Population: More than 13 million people
Electoral College votes: 19
Who won in 2020? Democrat Joe Biden
What was the margin of victory? Biden had 50 percent of the vote compared with 48.8 percent for Trump.
Did you know? Trump’s 2016 victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton was the first time a Republican candidate won Pennsylvania since 1988.
27m ago (20:35 GMT)
‘I want economic stability,’ Arizona voter says
In Arizona, a key swing state with 11 electoral votes, concerns about the economy and immigration are predominant.
Ben Ash, a student at Arizona State University, told Al Jazeera he trusts Harris’s economic vision over Trump’s. “I’m going to be a first-time home buyer. I’m entering the job market. And the one thing I can ask for is security, stability,” Ash said.
“On the one hand, we have [a candidate] who is going to ignite a global trade war. On the other hand, we have [a candidate] who is talking about bringing down costs of homes and providing a sense of security. It’s very clear-cut.”
Ash also said he found Trump’s disparaging comments about immigrants “despicable” and believes Harris can succeed in securing the border while also offering a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants.
Harris and her current boss President Biden have, however, tacked to the right on immigration as the campaign has dragged on, focusing heavily on enforcement, restrictions and punishments for people hoping to come to the US.
Latino voters: A rapidly growing force in Arizona’s battleground state
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27m ago (20:35 GMT)
How do astronauts vote from space?
On the latest episode of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) podcast, the United States space agency described the process that allows astronauts to vote from low orbit aboard the International Space Station, or wherever they may be in space.
It’s relatively straightforward, explained Marta Durham and Karen Adkins, two of NASA’s ground staff who deal with supporting the crew.
First, if an astronaut says they want to vote, Durham and Adkins will work with the county they live in to secure them an absentee ballot and send it with them to space.
Then, it’s a simple matter of having them fill it in, sign it, scan it and send it back using a password-protected PDF to protect the secrecy of the ballot to NASA’s ground staff.
“We’ve had crew that have sent us pictures of how they’ve used their crew quarters, and they’ve put like a little sign on it that [says] ‘Voting Booth’”, Durham said.
Credit: Al-Jazeera
