It has been called an election like no other, a fight for the soul of America. For many months US President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden have been criss-crossing the country despite the coronavirus pandemic for the ultimate prize - the White House. It's now time to listen to the people as they speak through the most powerful weapon in a democracy – the ballot. Here is all that happened on the voting day.
Record voting and a rush to the polls
Americans capped off weeks of record early voting with a rush to the polls on Tuesday morning, the final phase in a presidential campaign unlike any other.
Battered by the deadly coronavirus crisis, struggling with an economic recession and facing the possibility of a contested election result, voters are on track to turn out in unprecedented numbers. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, is favoured to beat President Trump, a Republican, in opinion polls, but polls remain tight in several key battlegrounds and officials warn that it could take days to tally enough ballots to determine the outcome.
Roughly 100 million people voted before Tuesday, reflecting an intense focus on this year's campaign and the expanded use of mail ballots to avoid crowded polling places in the midst of a pandemic.
Trump started his morning activities calling into the "Fox & Friends" programme and was asked about Democratic concerns that he may declare victory prematurely before mail-in votes are counted in key states.
"At what point will you declare victory," one of the hosts, Steve Doocy, asked.
"When there's victory," Trump replied. "I think we'll have victory. But only when there's victory. I mean, there's no reason to play games. I look at it as being a very solid chance of winning here."
Who will win eventually? Wait and watch.
Biden begins Election Day visiting son's grave
Joe Biden has started Election Day with a visit to church - and the grave of his late son, Beau.
Biden and his wife, Jill, made an early morning stop at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Wilmington, Delaware, the church he typically visits on Sunday when home. Biden had granddaughters Finnegan and Natalie in tow Tuesday.
After a brief church visit, the four walked to Beau Biden's grave in the church cemetery.
Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, and Biden often speaks on the campaign trail of his courage while deployed to Iraq as a major in the Delaware Army National Guard.
Biden's late wife, Neilia, and infant daughter, Naomi, died in a car crash in 1972, shortly after Biden was elected senator. They are also buried in the cemetery.
Biden is spending the rest of his day in Pennsylvania as he makes a final push to get out the vote.
A patient wait to vote
Dozen states could swing the election
The US presidential election will be decided by about a dozen states that could swing to either President Donald Trump, a Republican, or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
These states will play a critical role in delivering the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. Due to a surge in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic - as well as the states’ varying rules for when ballots can be counted - the results may not be known on Tuesday’s Election Day.
The states include Florida (29 electoral votes), Georgia (16), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), Texas (38), Wisconsin (10) and Iowa (6).
Polling stations open in New York, New Jersey and Virginia
Polling stations opened in New York, New Jersey and Virginia early Tuesday, marking the start of US Election Day as President Donald Trump seeks to beat forecasts and defeat challenger Joe Biden.
At least 98.1 million people voted before Election Day, or just shy of 71 percent of the nearly 139 million ballots cast during the 2016 presidential election, according to data collected by The Associated Press. Given that a few states, including Texas, had already exceeded their total 2016 vote count, experts were predicting record turnout this year.
Polls open in Vermont
Polling stations in the US state of Vermont opened at 5am (EST) for the presidential election. The state, with three electoral votes, has voted Democrat since 1992.
In the 2016 presidential election, party candidate Hillary Clinton won 56.68 per cent of the votes, while then Republican candidate Donald Trump trailed 30.27 per cent.
Vermont is also among the 13 states that will be electing a governor. Incumbent Phil Scott, considered a moderate Republican, has one of the best approval ratings of any US governor at 75 per cent.
Trump wraps up campaign with late-night Michigan rally
The final rally in Donald Trump's gruelling re-election battle came to an end early Tuesday with the president promising he would once again defy the polls and political wisdom.
His final appearance after a marathon 17 public appearances saw Trump take the stage in Grand Rapids, an industrial city in the midwestern state of Michigan. It was the same place he ended his campaign exactly four years earlier, ahead of the shock victory that propelled him to the highest office in the country despite trailing opponent Hillary Clinton through the last presidential contest.
"We are going to gain four more years in this very beautiful White House. We wrote a page of history four years ago, and tomorrow we will once again write a page of history," Trump told an adoring crowd of thousands, some of whom had been waiting since early Monday morning.
First voters in US election 2020
Texas drive-through voting upheld
A federal judge in Texas has denied a bid by Republicans to throw out about 127,000 votes already cast in the US presidential election at drive-through voting sites in Houston, a Democratic-leaning area. The plaintiffs had accused Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, a Democrat, of acting illegally when he allowed drive-through voting as an alternative during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a written order, US District Judge Andrew Hanen said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case and waited too long to sue.
"To disenfranchise over 120,000 voters who voted as instructed the day before the scheduled election does not serve the public interest," the judge wrote, adding that drive-through early voting was permissible under Texas law.
Twitter to flag tweets claiming early victory
Twitter Inc. has said that it will flag tweets from certain accounts, including those of presidential candidates, who claim a US election victory before it's called by two of seven media outlets.
Twitter said on Monday that it will require any tweet from some accounts declaring victory to cite either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls, the company said in updated guidelines to its election policies on Monday.
Tweets that include premature claims of victory will be labeled and direct people to Twitter's official US election page.
60-year tradition of early voting
Two tiny New Hampshire communities that vote for president just after the stroke of midnight on Election Day have cast their ballots, with one of them marking 60 years since the tradition began.
The results in Dixville Notch, near the Canadian border, were a sweep for former Vice President Joe Biden who won the town's five votes. In Millsfield, 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the south, President Donald Trump won 16 votes to Biden's five.
Normally, there would be a big food spread and a lot of media crammed into a small space to watch the voting, Tom Tillotson, town moderator in Dixville Notch, said last week. But that's no longer possible because of the coronavirus pandemic. It's also hard to observe the 60th anniversary of the tradition, which started in November 1960.
"Sixty years - and unfortunately, we can't celebrate it," he said.
The first vote is cast
Voters in Dixville Notch, a village of 12 residents in the US state of New Hampshire, cast the first Election Day votes on the stroke of midnight into Tuesday.
The tiny town in the middle of the forest, near the Canadian border, has traditionally voted "first in the nation" since 1960. Neighboring village Millsfield also begins voting at midnight.
Most polling stations on the East Coast will open at 6 or 7am (1100 or 1200 GMT) on Tuesday.
