Facebook says it's shut down a series of pages - and Instagram accounts - for suspicious behavior connected to the election.

In a blog post last night, external, the company said it was contacted by law enforcement about accounts that might be "linked to foreign entities".

The social network said it's shut down around 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram ones while it investigates.

And it said it would normally not announce such things so early - but given the election season, it wanted to "let people know about the action we’ve taken and the facts as we know them today".

An interesting nugget from Google suggests the Spanish-speaking population are very interested in today's election:

Key issues ahead of this vote include healthcare, immigration, and the economy.

We asked people from a dozen states across the country what issues will decide their vote.

To hear more voices and stories from every perspective, check out our Ask America series.

Our correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan is in the Miami sunshine for today's coverage, and brings us this rather nice tale from a busy polling station, where queues are around the block:

Feeling a little confused about what’s going on in the US today? Check out our simple guide.

It's raining on America's East Coast - and that can change all the projections, as our BBC colleagues there note:

On the flip side, things are still sunny where you would expect them to be, like in Florida.

One particularly interesting race is in the state of Georgia, where Stacey Abrams is vying to become the first black woman to be a US governor.

The divisive race included a faked automatic phone call pretending to be from Oprah Winfrey, campaigning against Ms Abrams.

Overnight, Winfrey herself took to social media to set the record straight.

"I heard people were making racist robo-calls in my name against Stacey Abrams - who I am 100% for," Winfrey said, wearing a t-shirt with the message: "VOTE".

"Jesus don't like ugly. And we know what to do about that - vote," she said.

With so much to consider and thousands of races taking place, some interesting stories can be lost.

That's why we've picked out some candidates who have had memorable journeys to the ballot box on November 6.

These include a cage-fighting Native-American and a former Miss America...

You can see the full list here.

Image source, Getty Images

A favourite reason used by many Americans for not voting has often been that they’re too busy, and there’s too much going on at work.

But now it may not be such a good excuse. Nearly 150 companies like Walmart, LeviStrauss and PayPal have signed up to the Make Time to Vote campaign, external.

The companies are offering paid time off and other schemes to give employees a better chance to get to the polls.

Ride-hailing firms Lyft and Uber are offering discounted rides to polling stations.

Image source, Getty Images

With so much coverage and analysis, it can be difficult to keep track of the mid-terms.

So as voting begins, let's recap some of the basics.

From the seats up for election to some context on how the vote typically goes - here's what you need to know.

As millions of Americans begin to vote, we've put together a guide on how to keep up with the latest results, analysis and interviews.

Here's how to follow the mid-term elections on the BBC.

Welcome to our live coverage of the crucial mid-term elections in the US.

Voters will head to the polls nationwide on Tuesday, but they won’t all do so at the same time.

Polls open and close at different times, mostly due to the different time zones (the US has six in total).

Voters in Vermont will be the first to mark their ballots, with polls there opening at 05:00 local time (10:00 GMT). The majority of the eastern US will see polls open at 06:00 or 07:00 local time.

Most polling places will remain open for at least 12 hours. The first to close will be Kentucky and Indiana, at 18:00. Between 19:00 and 19:30, more polls will close across the southern states, including for key races in Georgia and Florida.

At this point, it could become clear whether there’s a wave and if it’s blue (Democratic) or red (Republican).

Read more about what to expect hour by hour.

Image source, Getty Images