(Reuters) – Former Republican President Donald Trump won 90 electors, ahead of his Democratic rival, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, credited with 27 electors, according to the first projections after the polls closed on Tuesday evening for the American presidential election.
Polling stations have notably closed in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, three of the seven states considered likely to fall into one camp or the other (“swing states”) and where the first estimates are still awaited.
So much is at stake in the election, the voting intention polls are so indecisive and the ballot counting system is so variable from one state to another that the winner could not be known for several days.
To be elected, a candidate must win at least 270 of the 538 “electors” who will formally designate him president on December 17. The fate of the election could therefore be decided in one or two states, such as Pennsylvania and its 19 electors, against a backdrop of fear of a repeat of the violence which followed the 2020 election won by Joe Biden against Donald Trump, including the assault on the Capitol by the latter's supporters on January 6, 2021.
In addition to the presidential election, the Americans are called upon to completely renew the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, a vote also crucial to determine the latitude available to the future tenant of the White House.
SEE The interactive map (in English) of the vote
Latest developments:
02:04 – Donald Trump is ahead of Kamala Harris in Florida (30 voters), Alabama (9), Oklahoma (7), Tennessee (11), Missouri and Mississippi (6), according to estimates Edison research and Decision esk HQ.
The outgoing Democratic vice-president is in the lead in Maryland (10 electors), Massachusetts (11), Rhode Island (4) and the District of Columbia (3), according to Edison research and Decision Desk HQ .
01:31 – Donald Trump is in the lead in West Virginia (4 major voters), according to the Edison Research Institute.
Republican Jim Justice won West Virginia's U.S. congressional seat, according to Edison research, putting the Grand Old Party on par with Democrats in the 100-seat Senate at 50 seats. The seat won by Jim Justice was previously held by Joe Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent.
For the moment, neither side seems to have the advantage in the battle for the House of Representatives, narrowly controlled by the Republicans.
01h01- Donald Trump is in the lead in South Carolina (9 electors), in Indiana (11 electors) and Kentucky (8 electors), according to the Edison research and Decision Desk HQ institutes. Kamala Harris is given the lead in Vermont (3 major voters), according to initial estimates.
Polling stations have closed in Georgia (16 voters), one of the seven so-called “pivotal” states where the first estimates are still awaited.
00h08 – Billionaire Elon Musk, supporter and donor of Donald Trump, confirmed via the social network
11:32 p.m. – Kamala Harris, who sent her postal ballot in her state of California, appealed to voters to vote in various radio interviews. She was to speak during the day to students at Howard University in Washington, from which she graduated.
11:13 p.m. – Nearly three-quarters (73%) of voters who voted in the presidential election believe that American democracy is in danger, according to an exit poll carried out by the Edison Research institute.
The survey highlights that democracy and the economy are by far the most important issues to voters, followed by abortion rights and immigration.
These provisional figures are based on a small part of the tens of millions of voters called to vote, in advance or on election day.
11:10 p.m. – A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Elon Musk by registered voters who signed a conservative petition hoping to win a million-dollar-a-day lottery promised by the billionaire and are now denouncing a scam.
The complaint, filed by an Arizona resident, Jacqueline McAferty, in a federal court in Austin, Texas, claims that Elon Musk and his organization “America PAC”, which supports Donald Trump, misled these voters by making them believe that they would be chosen at random when they were designated in advance.
10:45 p.m. – A US district judge has rejected a challenge filed by Republicans to block seven counties in Georgia – one of the so-called “pivotal” states in the race for the White House – from counting proxy votes in the election. election, noting that these seven counties were chosen solely because they traditionally lean Democratic.
Judge Stan Baker, appointed by former President Donald Trump, accused Republicans of “discrimination against citizens least likely to vote for their candidate.”
8:30 p.m. – Two polling stations in Georgia, one of the so-called “pivotal” states in the presidential election, were briefly evacuated after bomb threats attributed to Russian agents by local electoral authorities.
The threats were quickly identified as not credible and the two offices, located in Fulton County, reopened after about thirty minutes. The county asked the court for permission to extend voting beyond 7 p.m., the official closing time in the state.
Republican Brad Raffensperger, head of Georgia's elections, accused Russia of being behind the alerts.
In a statement, the FBI said it was aware of false bomb threats sent to several states, which it did not name, from Russian email addresses.
7:45 p.m. – The Capitol Police, seat of the United States Congress in Washington, announced the arrest of a man smelling of gasoline and equipped with a torch and a distress gun in the reception center visitors (Capitol Visitor Center), which has been closed pending verification.
6:10 p.m. – Donald Trump said he was “confident” in his victory after voting in West Palm Beach, Florida, saying Republicans voted in droves.
“I hear the results are very good,” the former president said. “I think we are going to win by a large margin this evening,” he added to journalists.
“It will be a shame if we do not know the results very soon,” said Donald Trump, while assuring that he would recognize the verdict of the polls “if the election is fair”.
4:30 p.m. – The FBI has issued a warning against two new fake videos, one suggesting the existence of a terrorist threat and the other electoral fraud.
A video allegedly released by a federal security agency mentions a high terrorist threat and urges Americans to “vote by mail” – although it is too late to do so in many states – while another video mentions a false press release from the same agency reporting electoral fraud in five prisons.
These two videos are “inauthentic,” the FBI said in a statement denouncing an attempted manipulation aimed at “undermining our democratic process and eroding confidence in the electoral system.”
12:00 p.m. – Polling stations opened at 6:00 a.m. local time in several states on the East Coast, including New York.
As has been tradition since 1960, the residents of Dixville Notch, a small village in New Hampshire, were however invited to vote at midnight. They gave three votes to each of the two candidates.
(Written by Jean Terzian and Camille Raynaud, edited by Blandine Hénault)
