US election 2024 live: first polls have closed as millions continue to vote in contentious Trump-Harris race | US elections 2024

MJ, an 18-year-old from Milwaukee, voted for the first time today – splitting her ballot between Donald Trump, at the top of the ticket, and Democratic candidates all the way down.

“I’m mainly worried about economics,” said MJ, who cited immigration as her second top concern. She said she’s frustrated about the possibility of non-US citizens voting in this election – a claim that Trump and his allies have been promoting for months, despite the fact that empirical evidence suggests non-citizens, who face steep penalties for voting illegally, including felony charges and possible deportation, rarely cast a ballot in federal elections.

Evidently, those claims have stuck – including influencing MJ’s decision to vote Trump, despite preferring Democratic party candidates in general.

“I’m gonna vote all Democrat [otherwise],” said MJ. She said abortion rights are a major concern for her, and said she was “on the fence” about Trump for that reason.

According to CNN, Philadelphia police don’t know what Trump is talking about in his post alleging “cheating” in the city, and are not aware of any issues that would call for their response.

There was a semi-viral video spreading on the rightwing internet today. James O’Keefethe guy who makes undercover videos that are often misleading or outright false, posted a video on X claiming that an election worker in Philadelphia told voters they could cast a ballot if they were not citizens. Accounts like Libs of TikTok spread the video to their followers.

Those who remember the 2020 election will recall that it took a few days before we knew for sure that Joe Biden had beaten Donald Trump.

But the result of previous elections was known much sooner, as the below chart shows:

The year 2000 was when a very close race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W Bush came down to the state of Florida and a supreme court case that was decided in Bush’s favor, sending him to the White House.

Reporting from Fulton county, Georgia:

“We’re stuck in a position where we have to affirm this challenge,” said Aaron Johnson, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections board’s vice-chair.

“A lot of people are getting caught up now.” Johnson said he knew this would happen. “We didn’t make the rule. The general assembly made the rule. Whether I agree with it or not, we have to follow the rule.”

“I’ve been voting with this address for years,” said Chante Knox, whose voter registration was challenged. She was homeless when she first registered. She’s a Republican and a Donald Trump voter, and has been skeptical of the county’s election administration, but this issue is separate from those concerns, she said.

“I’m still a Fulton County resident. I still want my vote to count,” she said. “I want a non-provisional vote for the president.”

Jack Samuels from the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and the ACLU, said Swanson’s denial was the product of inadequate notice.

“Many of the persons being challenged have not received notice,” he said. “They did not know that they needed to oppose the challenge before today. Like all of us, they have work, family, child and senior care obligations that do not generally permit people to drop everything and drive as far as 40 miles across the county to appear. A hearing on insufficient notice deprives them of the right to vote in violation of their due process rights and equal protection and should not be occurring.”

Samuels demanded the right for Swanson to cast a provisional ballot, laying the groundwork for a legal appeal. “This hearing is not practical” for voters, he said.

Reporting from Fulton county, Georgia:

“I’ve been trying to vote since eight in the morning,” said John Whitfield, an entertainer who goes by DC Young Fly, animatedly contesting his removal from the voting rolls in Fulton County before the elections board.

He stood. He paced the room. His indignation radiated. He – and dozens of others – packed the hearing room in south Fulton on election day, thoroughly pissed off.

“I’m just trying to exercise my right to vote. This is critical,” he said aloud as the hearing proceeded. “If my ancestors didn’t fight for me to vote, I wouldn’t give a damn.”

The Georgia legislature changed election laws after the 2020 election, to bar voters from registering at commercial addresses like UPS stores.

One by one, bewildered people who showed up to vote this morning to find that they were de-registered under this law protested their removal at the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, hoping to vote today.

Sheree Swanson, an actor from Sandy Springs, was challenged because she initially used a UPS store address as the address on her voter registration, the same address as a trucking company she owns, she said. Her vehicle insurance company required her driver’s license to have the same address as the address for her vehicle registration, she said. Swanson tried to change her addresses to match her home address last week, she said. That was too late.

“Her status is challenged because she listed her business as her residence,” said Katherine Glenn, the board’s registration officer. “Don’t swear or affirm if you don’t live there.”

The board, by a 3-0 vote, denied her appeal.

Now that the first polls have closed, it’s a good time to talk about who the Guardian uses to determine the outcome of today’s vote.

The Guardian relies on the Associated Press to determine the outcomes of elections across the United States. The New York-based global news agency has a presence in every US state and a long and authoritative history of determining the winners of elections at the presidential, congressional and state level. Here is more information about their process.

The first polls have closed in the US, with voting wrapping up in most Indiana counties and in Kentucky’s eastern half.

Voting will finish in the rest of the two red states at 7pm, at which point it will also conclude in a handful of other states – including swing state Georgia.

We’re minutes away from the first polls closing anywhere in the United States.

Most counties in Indiana and several in eastern Kentucky will wrap up voting at 6pm ET. Both generally vote Republican and not considered swing states this year. Voting in the remaining counties will finish at 7pm.

Reporting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

Serina Jones30, pulled over her minivan in West Milwaukee and flagged down a canvasser walking down the street in a reflective jacket.

“Are you all doing voter stuff?” she asked.

Jones, who is a mother of three, had not registered to vote yet but was determined to cast a ballot – and had plans to get her husband to the polls, too.

After plugging in her address and making a plan to vote, she told me she has “mixed feelings” about the election.

“I’m fired up,” said Jones, who is voting for Kamala Harris and said she worried about the consequences of a second Donald Trump presidency for her three children’s education and livelihood.

“But I have a lot riding on this,” she said. “I’m trying to make sure we got a future for our babies.”

Seth Bluesteina Republican Philadelphia city commissioner, called Donald Trump’s claim of “cheating” in the city “disinformation”, and said the vote so far has been “safe and secure”.

Bluestein is one of three officials on the board tasked with overseeing voting in Philadelphia. Here’s what he had to say:

Philadelphia neighborhoods where many Puerto Ricans live have seen high voter turnout, the Harris campaign says, after a speaker at a Donald Trump rally last month referred to the US territory as “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”.

It could be a positive sign for the vice-president’s chances of winning Pennsylvania, perhaps the most vital of the three “Blue Wall” swing states along the Great Lakes. Victories in the Keystone state along with Michigan and Wisconsin would probably provide enough electoral votes to make Harris the next president.

The campaign also sees high turnout by students at universities nationwide, including in Pennsylvania. In battleground state North Carolina, fewer rural Republicans appear to have voted, but many people have cast ballots in the Democratic-leaning city of Durham.

Democrats are counting on young voters to turn out at the polls today to help deliver wins for not just Kamala Harris but congressional candidates and ballot measures across the country.

“Young people will decide this election. From local ballot initiatives to federal races, we know this critical bloc is showing up for their futures and making their voices heard,” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of the youth voting group NextGen America.

According to NextGen’s data, the group registered more than 130,000 young voters this election cycle, while more than 171,000 young voters signed pledges to vote.

“We are proud of our work this cycle on-the-ground and online to educate, mobilize, and empower young voters, contributing to a culture of civic engagement that will extend beyond this election,” Ramirez said.

“Young people are showing up, turning out, and using their collective power to elect leaders that represent our values – today and into the future.”