Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I've just left Philadelphia's City Hall – which appears to be the scene of some early morning election day hiccups.

I arrived a few minutes after 07:00 (12:00 GMT), when polls opened, but was puzzled to find only a handful of people, seemingly lost.

I finally found a door to the polling station, only to find two city workers struggling with a stuck door. An agitated older man was raising his voice at a poll worker, but suddenly stormed off, muttering a long string of expletives from underneath the hood a green Philadelphia Eagles jacket. "They say the doors are stuck, you believe that? Unbelievable," he said.

Minutes later, a city worker pointed me in the direction of a functioning door. But the polling place was empty.

A few blocks away, at the Church of Saint Luke and the Epiphany, things are going much smoother.

There are about 120 people, going inside in small batches and coming out one by one.

It's a calm and rather festive atmosphere. There's a DJ table – helpfully marked as "DJ at the polls" – which is blaring music. So far this morning I've heard Drake, Lauryn Hill and David Guetta.

How BBC Verify will be fact-checking on election daypublished at 12:29 Greenwich Mean Time 5 November

12:29 GMT 5 November

By Merlyn Thomas

Over the last week, there seems to have been an upsurge in claims going viral on social media alleging election fraud - particularly in the all-important swing states.

BBC Verify has been investigating some of these. They include a video claiming that illegal voters were queuing for mail-in ballots in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania - which election officials rejected as false.

We also investigated a video of a man apparently tearing up mail-in ballots for Donald Trump, which was likely the work of Russian disinformation, according to the FBI.

BBC Verify found evidence linking two fake videos flagged by the FBI to a Russia-based operation that has produced hundreds of fakes directed at the election in recent months.

Expect to see more claims on election day and beyond.

BBC Verify will be monitoring social media to see which ones are going viral and whether any of the evidence they provide - when they do provide any - actually checks out.

It's not just a choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump today - voters in America have plenty else to decide on:

• Abortion rights are on the ballot in 10 states - including the battleground states of Arizona and Nevada
• One third of the US Senate - 34 of its 100 seats - is also up for grabs. Democrats currently control the Senate by a one-seat margin
• In the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, all 435 seats are up for election, as they are every two years. Republicans currently have a slim majority
• Recreational or medical marijuana use is also on the ballot in four states - Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota
• Referendums on voting and elections - in some areas, voters will also choose how they want their elections to be run

Image source, Reuters

We're starting to see voters arrive at their local polling stations to choose their next president.

Some in New York City - where voting opened a little over an hour ago - are casting their ballots at the Anna Silver Elementary School in Manhattan.

Take a look:

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

It's just gone 07:00 on the East Coast of the US (12:00 GMT) and voting is opening in more places:

• Florida
• Georgia - one of the seven swing states
• Illinois
• Louisiana
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan - a swing state
• Missouri
• Pennsylvania - seen as the key swing state, with its 19 electoral college votes
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Washington DC

This means voters can now cast their ballots in more than 20 US states - there are 50 in total.

Anna Foster
Reporting from Philadelphia

I can see around 50 people already lining up to vote here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with more joining all the time.

Many are holding cups of coffee to ward off the morning chill.

Not far from here, Kamala Harris gave her final rally last night. As she was speaking, fresh signs were being attached to the nearby lampposts here.

"Defend Democracy", one says, with pictures of Harris, Barack Obama and Martin Luther King.

Steps away, there’s a Republican notice pinned to a tree. "Trump Safety, Kamala Crime" it reads, in red and blue capital lettering.

It’s a bold statement in a state both candidates are desperate to win.

More polls have opened, this time in Ohio, West Virginia and North Carolina, meaning 11 US states in total are now welcoming voters.

North Carolina, the first swing state today where polls have opened, has had a tough few weeks. It was hit hard by the recent Hurricane Helene, with around half the total number of people killed coming from there.

In 2020, Donald Trump won the Sun Belt state by a margin of less than 2%.

If you want to know more about swing states, you might find the below video useful:

It's hard to say, in all honesty.

Polls close at different times in different states, but by 23:00 on the East Coast in the US (04:00 GMT) all states will have closed their polls - except for Hawaii and Alaska where polls close a little later.

Traditionally, it was soon after the close of voting at 23:00 in California that the race as a whole was called for one candidate or the other. But few observers are expecting a speedy resolution this year, with some suggesting it could take days, rather than hours, to know the victor.

Early tallies may also be misleading. A candidate who takes an early lead through in-person votes may end up being overtaken when postal votes and other types of ballots are added later. This happened in Michigan in 2020 - Trump took an early lead through in-person votes but was later overtaken by Biden.

Basically, it's a bit of a waiting game, but we'll be here to guide you through the latest until, during and after the moment the result is announced.

• Find out more about how election night will work

Kamala Harris has shared her first post on X since US polls opened just over an hour ago.

"America, this is the moment to make your voices heard," the current vice-president says.

Her opponent, Donald Trump, hasn't posted since polls opened but did say on his Truth Social platform about three hours ago: "IT’S TIME TO GET OUT AND VOTE—SO TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!"

That was about an hour after his final campaign rally, in Michigan, wrapped up.

Kamala Harris, US vice-president

Age: 60

Party: Democratic Party

Campaign promises: Harris’s catchphrase is "We are not going back", referring to the policies of former president Donald Trump. She supports abortion rights, has launched an economic plan to ban price gouging at the grocery store, and says she will "end America's housing shortage".

Major moment of 2024: Her headlining speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, barely a month after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Donald Trump, former US President

Age: 78

Party: Republican Party

Campaign promises: Trump says he will "seal the border" to halt illegal immigrants, has pledged across-the-board tax cuts, proposed a 10% tariff on all US imports and vowed to "drill, baby, drill" to bring down energy prices.

Major moment of 2024: Surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, a lasting image of which showed him with his fist in the air and blood on his face.

Image source, Getty Images

It's just turned 06:00 on the East Coast of America, that's 11:00 here in the UK, and that means polls are opening in more states.

Voters in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia can all now cast their ballots.

Of these, New York has the most electoral college votes, with 28 up for grabs there. The state with the fewest is Maine, with four.

The winner of this election is not necessarily the person who gets the most votes from the public - bear with us while we explain that.

Instead, US presidential candidates compete to win contests held across the US's 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Each state or territory runs its own election, and then send a designated number of electors - which is roughly based on its population size - to vote in the electoral college.

There are a total of 538 votes up for grabs - the winner is the candidate that gets 270 or more.

Most states lean heavily towards one party or the other, so the focus is on about seven states where either of them could win - these are known as the swing states, which we took you through a little earlier.

America's future is in the balance - this result could impact generations to comepublished at 10:31 Greenwich Mean Time 5 November

10:31 GMT 5 November

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Sometimes lost in all this electoral map strategising and gameplay is the historic significance of this presidential election.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump represent two very different views of the US - on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

The president for the next four years will be able to shape American government - including the federal courts - in a way that could have an impact for generations.

The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different to the populist one that Trump now leads, which has far more appeal to blue-collar and low-income voters. The Democratic Party's base still rests on young voters and people of colour, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college educated.

Today's results may offer additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realised over the past eight years, are reshaping the US political map. And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

It wasn't too long ago - in the 1970s and 1980s - that Republicans were viewed as having a unassailable lock on the presidency because they consistently won a majority in enough states to prevail in the electoral college.

This election may be a 50-50 contest, but that doesn't mean this is the new normal in American presidential politics.

Image source, Getty Images

It's just turned 05:00 on the East Coast of America, meaning polls have opened in Vermont and US election day is well and truly under way.

Over the next few hours, more states will follow suit as America chooses its next president. Next up, we'll see polls open in states including New York and Virginia - we'll tell you when that happens.

Stay with us for all the latest updates, analysis and explainers.

Image source, Getty Images

US election day is upon us, so now's as good a time as any to remind ourselves of how this contest works.

How do you win?

The next president of the US is determined by which candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College. Each state is allocated a number of electoral college votes depending on its population. Across the US there are 538 electoral college votes in total. In 48 of the 50 states, the candidate who wins the most individual votes is awarded all of its electoral college votes. The winning candidate needs to get a majority of those - so at least 270.

When will we know?

This is a tricky question, and the answer is - "it depends". Some states can turn around results quite quickly, but for many it could be a long process - especially if there's a large number of early and mail-in ballots which are counted on the night after those cast in person. At the last US presidential election in 2020, it wasn't until the Saturday after polling day that US media were confident enough to call the result.

When will the new president get sworn in?

One thing we do know is that whoever wins does not become president until inauguration day - when they are sworn in outside the US Capitol in Washington DC by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. That day is Monday 20 January 2025.

Image source, Reuters

We reported earlier on a tie in the six-person community of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, where America's first 2024 election result was announced just after midnight. Three votes were cast for Kamala Harris and three for Donald Trump.

Our colleagues at Newsday have been speaking to one of those voters, Les Otten - a Republican who voted Democrat for the first time.

He says he voted for Harris because she is promising loyalty to voters, while Trump is seeking loyalty from them, which Otten doesn't believe is the right attitude.

“If the person that is elected believes that all of us have input and can form the government... that's very different than if they're saying to us 'We need to follow what I say'."

• For context: The tiny community has a tradition of midnight voting, but most US polling stations aren't open yet. That'll change in about 15 minutes, when Vermont residents can start voting.

Image source, Reuters

In Washington DC, the home of US politics, many businesses have boarded up their windows in preparation for possible unrest on or after election day.

Hundreds of National Guardsmen are also on standby in the American capital, as well as in other states - including Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina and New Mexico.

Metal fences began to be erected outside the White House from as early as the beginning of October - the same has since happened near other DC buildings, including the Capitol.

Image source, Reuters

Away from the glitz and glamour of celebrity endorsements (see our last post), US intelligence chiefs are warning that "foreign adversaries" - including Russia - are carrying out operations to "undermine public confidence in the integrity of US elections and stoke divisions among Americans".

In a joint statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Russia-linked groups were inciting violence against election officials and repeating false claims of voter fraud.

The agencies state that "Russian influence actors" recently posted an article falsely claiming that officials in key states plan to rig Tuesday's presidential election by stuffing ballot boxes. The ODNI goes on to say it expects these efforts to intensify over the coming days. It also accuses Iran of being a "significant foreign influence threat" to the US.

Tehran and Moscow have denied trying to disrupt the election.

They've always played a role in US elections and it was no different this year for celebrity endorsements.

At her final rally, Kamala Harris was joined in Pennsylvania by pop star Lady Gaga who sang God Bless America and told attendees "the country is depending on you".

Image source, Getty Images

Harris's opponent also continued receiving celebrity support until the last moment, with podcaster Joe Rogan announcing to his followers on Monday "for the record" that he endorses Trump.

The former president appeared on Rogan's show last month - it had been thought Harris would do the same but a member of her campaign team eventually announced that scheduling had not worked out.

Democrat and Republican voters' worlds are about to collidepublished at 08:32 Greenwich Mean Time 5 November

08:32 GMT 5 November

Sarah Smith
North America editor

One of the things I've learned travelling around this country and talking to voters is that America doesn't just seem remarkably divided, it feels as though two separate nations are awkwardly cohabiting on the same land mass.

Democrats mainly live in the cities and suburbs, with Republicans mostly living in rural areas.

Americans are increasingly moving to places where their neighbours share their political outlook. And it’s not hard to identify these areas at the moment, given the yard signs and placards that so often mark out Trump and Harris territory.

But it is not possible to live in these separate political worlds forever. These two sides are about to collide with the harsh reality of an election.

However disputed, however contested, there has to be a winner.

And when some here learn the eventual result and realise that tens of millions of their fellow Americans feel very differently to them, it will be a shock.