US elections: Counting continues in key states, Biden leads over Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin 

11.02 pm: Here is a quick update of what has happened so far:

• The race to the White House between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is still too close to call in battleground states. Counting is underway in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
• Biden held narrow leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada. Meanwhile, Trump has been projected to win Florida, Ohio, Texas and Iowa.
• Trump’s campaign manager said he was confident that the president will win the elections if all “legally cast” ballots are tabulated, while Biden’s campaign manager also maintained that the former vice president is on track to become the next president of the United States.
• Earlier in the day, Trump falsely claimed he had won the election, even as millions of votes were uncounted. He also said he would go the US Supreme Court to fight for the win if needed.
• After this, the Biden campaign criticised Trump’s victory claim as “outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect” and a “naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens”.

10.55 pm: The AP, CNN and The New York Times have not yet projected a winner for Wisconsin, but Joe Biden is still leading ahead of Donald Trump there.

10.47 pm: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says the state still has around 2,00,000 ballots to count. Georgia has 16 votes in the electoral college.

10.42 pm: According to CNN and The New York Times projections, Joe Biden will win 227 electoral votes and Trump is predicted to win 213.

10.35 pm: Wisconsin Elections Commission says officials have been completely transparent with the voters about how ballots would be counted and reported. This comes amid reports that Joe Biden has won the state.

10.33 pm: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tells CNN that “tens of thousands” of ballots still need to be counted. “We’re going to ensure that the results of our elections accurately reflect every single ballot vote that was cast,” says Benson. “And this is particularly important in close races, as the numbers of outstanding ballots is still greater than the margin of difference between many races with leading candidates.”

10.30 pm: Republican incumbent Donald Trump now says that “Biden votes [are] all over the place” in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

9.45 pm: As of 9.45 pm IST, Biden has 50.1% of the popular vote and Trump 48.2%, according to The New York Times.

9.44 pm: Biden will address the media later today, reports CNN.

9.40 pm: Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says there are still millions of votes left to be counted in the state, CNN reports. “I don’t know what the totals are going to end up at, but somewhere between 2.5 million and 3 million ballots,” says Boockvar.

She adds, “We are going to accurately count every single ballot.”

“It’s gonna take some time to count the votes, we are approaching about 50% of the votes to be counted. But there’s gonna be a lot of updates in the coming hours,” Boockvar says.

9.09 pm: Meanwhile, Trump campaign officials call Fox News, AP projections of Biden winning Arizona as “just plain wrong”, reports The New York Times. “If we count all legal ballots, the president wins,” Campaign manager Bill Stepien says.

9.05 pm: Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon also says that even if officials stopped counting ballots right now, as Donald Trump wants, Biden would still be the next president.

9.02 pm: Joe Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, in a live address, says he is on track to become the next president of the United States, reports The Guardian.

“We believe we are in a clear path to victory by this afternoon, we expect that the vice president will have leads in states that put him over 270 electoral votes today. The vice president will garner more votes than any presidential candidate in history, and we’re still counting. He has won over 50% of the popular vote. We are on track to win in Michigan by more than Donald Trump did in 2016. To win in Wisconsin by more than Trump did in 2016. To win in Pennsylvania by more than Trump did in 2016. And we flipped one of his states, Arizona.”

8.58 pm: In another tweet, Donald Trump questions: “How come every time they count mail-in ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?”

He also says it is “very strange” that the Republican party’s vote share has fallen.

Twitter has labelled both his tweets as “disputed” and “misleading”.

8.55 pm: As Joe Biden pulls ahead in some places still counting votes, President Donald Trump claims that states in which he was leading last night have “started to magically disappear as surprise ballots were counted”.

8.42 pm: Democrat Joe Biden says the party “won’t rest until everyone’s vote is counted” after President Donald Trump prematurely declared victory. Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and former counsel to Barack Obama, Bob Bauer, will be talking shortly about the election race.

8.39 pm: According to both AP and The New York Times, Joe Biden is leading in Michigan.

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were among the three states that elected Donald Trump four years ago.

8.35 pm: Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro tells CNN that the vote counting is “going to take as long as it takes to get an accurate count”. “It’s what the law requires,” Shapiro adds. “We’re going to get a lot more data today; I think you will have a clearer picture of where things are going toward the end of the day, but obviously ballots can be received and counted all the way up until Friday. So I expect that we’ll know by the end of the week.”

7.30 pm: In the race to get the 270 electoral college votes needed to occupy the White House, Joe Biden is currently projected to win 224. Trump is predicted to win 213 based on CNN projections.

The outcome of this election, however, is likely to be determined by the tens of millions of postal ballots yet to be counted.

7.27 pm: As of early Wednesday morning in the United States, CNN reports that it is still too close to call in Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

7.22 pm: Democrat Donald McEachin has been re-elected to the US House by the people of Virginia, reports AP.

7.15 pm: Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla tells DW News that the results of the presidential elections is unlikely to impact India’s relationship with the United States as it is based on bipartisan support.

“Our relations with the US are really based on bipartisan support, you see it in Congress, you see it at the public levels,” Shringla adds. “We do believe that we have forged a relationship that today has withstood the test of time, is very comprehensive and multi-faceted.”

6.26 pm: Election officials says Nevada will not announce any new updates on results until 9 am on Thursday, according to The New York Times. Joe Biden holds a narrow lead here.

6.20 pm: Joe Biden is leading in the industrial state of Wisconsin by about 11,000 votes, reports The New York Times.

5.55 pm: Trump ally and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie disagrees with the president’s remarks from a few hours earlier, reports CNN. “All these votes have to be counted that are in now,” Christie says, adding that Trump “undercut his own credibility”.

“...There comes a point where you have to let the process play itself out before you judge it to have been flawed. And I think by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw in it later, he has undercut his own credibility in calling attention to that flaw,” CNN quotes the former US attorney as saying.

5.16 pm: At least thousands of ballots remain to be counted in Nevada.

5.15 pm: Nevada has stopped counting votes for the night. According to The New York Times, Biden holds 49.4% of the votes, and Trump 48.6% so far.

4.52 pm: According to CNN, Joe Biden now has 224 electoral college votes and Donald Trump has 213.

4.42 pm: France Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire says the outcome of the US presidential race will have little impact on US-Europe trade relations, reports AFP. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” he says. “The United States has not been a friendly partner to European states for several years now. Whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump is elected by Americans tonight or tomorrow, nothing changes this strategic fact.”

4.38 pm: Indian-American former diplomat Srinivas Rao Preston Kulkarni has lost the congressional race in Texas to his Republican opponent Troy Nehls, reports PTI. According to the latest updates, Kulkarni managed to secure 44% of the votes, whereas Nehls won 52%.

If elected, Kulkarni would have become the first Asian-American ever to serve in the Texas congressional delegation.

4.35 pm: So far, Donald Trump has been projected to win Florida, Ohio, Texas and Iowa and tight races are under way in Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia.

4.20 pm: United States stock index futures make gains in volatile trading as investors as Joe Biden and Donald Trump are locked in a tight election race, reports Reuters. S&P e-mini futures tumbled 1.15% earlier, but recovered to trade up 1.3%.

3.48 pm: Biden takes a sudden lead in Wisconsin, where Trump was leading till now, reports CNN. The news channel says Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by 22,000 votes.

3.45 pm: CNN projects that Biden will win the state of Hawaii, which has four electoral votes.

3.41 pm: Even as votes are still being counted, Joe Biden now has more electoral votes than his predecessor Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Biden has 238 votes in the electoral college, while Clinton had 232 in the 2016 election, reports Forbes.

3.30 pm: A quick reminder that counting is not yet over in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

3.20 pm: Biden’s campaign adds that if Trump does halt the vote counting process, they are ready to deploy legal teams.

“If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail.”

3.10 pm: Joe Biden’s campaign manager responds to Trump’s claims of election fraud and him trying to stop vote counting. Jen O’Malley Dillon calls Trump’s remarks “outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.” O’Mally Dillon says, “Counting will not stop,” after Trump said he would move court to stop counting.

“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect,” she says in a statement. “It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.”

It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.

It was unprecedented because never before in our history has a president of the United States sought to strip Americans of their voice in a national election. Having encouraged Republican efforts in multiple states to prevent the legal counting of these ballots before Election Day, now Donald Trump is saying these ballots can’t be counted after Election Day either.

And it was incorrect because it will not happen. The counting will not stop. It will continue until every duly cast vote is counted. Because that is what our laws — the laws that protect every Americans’ constitutional right to vote — require.

We repeat what the Vice President said tonight: Donald Trump does not decide the outcome of this election. Joe Biden does not decide the outcome of this election. The American people decide the outcome of this election. And the democratic process must and will continue until its conclusion.

— Jen O’Malley Dillon – Joe Biden's campaign manager

2.56 pm: Democrat representative from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – or AOC, as she is called – has won a second term in the United States Congress.

Read more: US Elections: New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secures a second term

2.50 pm: Musician Kanye West concedes defeat in the election, reports The Daily Mail. He was on the ballot as an independent or third-party candidate in 12 states – Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Utah, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana and Vermont.

West has been hugely trolled for the dismal amount of votes he got, a mere 57,000.

2.30 pm: To reiterate, counting of votes is not yet over. According to CNN, “millions of votes are outstanding in key states”. While Joe Biden still holds a slim lead in the electoral college, counting continues in Arizona and Georgia. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are among the states where votes still need to be counted.

2.25 pm: US President Donald J Trump has delivered a statement from the White House that doesn’t even need this alternate framing to be seen for what it is – an authoritarian power grab. The real surprise of the evening, in fact, may have been the fact that Trump stuck to the script that had been talked about for days and weeks, even though actual results on election night have been much more favourable to him than the polls predicted.

Read more here: US President Donald Trump insists votes cast for Joe Biden are a ‘fraud’ – and no one is surprised

1.55 pm: After Trump claimed he has already won the US elections, Benjamin L Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer who co-chaired the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, says that president should “let all the votes be counted,” CNN reports. Ginsberg adds that for a president to claim “we are going to disenfranchise those legally cast ballots – is really extraordinary”.

1.45 pm: Democrat Joe Biden has won Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, flipping a critical battleground state that Donald Trump won four years ago, AP reports. This victory is a huge blow to Trump as Arizona has backed a Democratic presidential candidate only once in the last 72 years.

1.40 pm: No full states had yet flipped from their 2016 results, but several key states had huge portions of ballots still to be counted, according to The New York Times. Biden did flip a single Electoral College vote that Trump had won in 2016, carrying Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes Omaha.

1.32 pm: It’s 3 am in the United States and this is where the election results stand:

Based on CNN’s current projections, Joe Biden has 220 electoral votes while Donald Trump has 213 electoral votes. The New York Times reports that Biden has earned 225 electoral college votes and Trump 213. The winner needs at least 270 electoral college votes.

Fox News, meanwhile, says that Biden has won 238 electoral votes, while Trump has bagged 213.

Moments ago, President Trump falsely claimed he has already won the elections, even though voting is still underway. He also vowed to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the legitimacy of postal ballots – something experts have been predicting he would do all along in the face of a possible defeat.

1.29 pm: All four Indian-American Democratic lawmakers – Dr Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi – have been re-elected to the US House of Representatives, PTI reports.

1.09 pm: Trump calls postal ballots a “a fraud on the American public, an embarrassment”, even though there is no evidence of foul play.

Read more: 2020 US election: Donald Trump says he will move Supreme Court, wants counting to stop

12.59 pm: “We will be going to the Supreme Court...we don’t want them to cast any ballots in the middle of the night,” Trump says. “We will win this, frankly, we have already won this.” Trump’s claims come despite significant outstanding votes yet to be counted.

12.58 pm: The President says Florida was a tremendous victory. “They are never gonna catch us,” he tells his supporters. “Millions and millions of people voted for us. A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people.”

12.57 pm: Trump says the results have been “phenomenal” so far. “We were all set to get outside and celebrate,” he adds. “Such a success. The citizens of this country has come out in record numbers, to support us.”

12.55 pm: Trump begins his speech. “The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers,” Trump says.

12.52 pm: Here are the latest election results from North Carolina.

12.40 pm: Ilhan Omar wins a second term in the US Congress Minnesota’s 5th congressional district in Minneapolis, Al Jazeera reports.

12.36 pm: It’s 2 am in the United States and Trump is expected to address the media shortly from the White House.

12.34 pm: Democrat Joe Biden has won at least one of Maine’s four electoral votes in his bid to unseat President Donald Trump, AP reports. Biden won the state’s 1st Congressional District.

12.28 pm: Although Trump has secured early wins in key states of Ohio, Florida and Iowa, US media projections show that Biden continues to maintain his lead over him. As per Fox News, Biden has 238 of the 538 electoral college seats, while Trump has 213. On the other hand, CNN projects 220 electoral college votes to Biden and 213 to Trump.

The New York Times reports that Biden has earned 223 electoral college votes and Trump 212. The winner needs at least 270 electoral college votes.

12.20 pm: Donald Trump has won four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, while Democrat Joe Biden has won one electoral vote from the state, AP reports.

12.17 pm: What does Trump mean by “stealing the election” ?

Twitter placed a “disputed and misleading” label on a tweet by President Trump in which he claimed, the Democrats are “trying to steal the election”. Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims seeking to undermine the integrity of the election, and his views on postal ballots are no secret.Time and again he has described them as “very dangerous for our country”, “a catastrophe” and even calling 2020 “the greatest rigged election in history.”

The likely November 3 outcome that worries observers is this scenario: the voting boxes and machines might very likely reveal an early Trump lead, but as the postal ballots keep getting counted that lead will start whittling away. Following this, Trump might challenge the legitimacy of mail-in ballots in the country’s Supreme Court, and may even declare himself a winner before the ballots are counted.

That’s also why experts see the US Senate’s approval of Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court judge on October 26 a significant development, tilting the balance in the court heavily towards the conservatives 6-3.

11.57 am: More than 1,000 people protesting against President Donald Trump converged on Black Lives Matter Plaza, just a block from the White House, in Washington, AP reports. The demonstrations, however, were largely peaceful, with people shouting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “If we don’t get no justice, they don’t get no peace!”

Across the country, the divisive and bitter campaigning had sparked fears of possible protests, civil unrest and violence, regardless of the election’s outcome. Several companies in New York City boarded up their storefronts, which experts pointed out was emblematic of the high stakes and the collective panic the US is experiencing.

However, the polling process has been largely peaceful so far.

11.45 am: Donald Trump has won Texas – America’s biggest state – and its 38 electoral votes, AP reports.

11.24 am: Shortly after Biden concluded his briefing, Donald Trump too announces that he would address the media later today. In a separate tweet, which Twitter flagged as misleading, Trump accuses the Democrats of trying to “steal the election”.

11.23 am: “I am optimistic about the outcome,” Biden tells his supporters in Delaware. “We’re confident about Arizona. We called it for Minnesota. We’re still in the game for Georgia. We’re feeling really good about Wisconsin and Michigan. It’s going to take time, but we will win Pennsylvania.”

11.20 am: Biden adds the Democrats are “on track to win this election,” but urged patience while votes are counted. “It ain’t over till every vote is counted, every ballot is counted,” he says. “But we’re feeling good. We’re feeling good about where we are.”

11.19 am: Joe Biden briefly addresses the media in Delaware, where he asks voters to not be worried about the current trends as more votes will be counted later. “We knew this was going to go long,” he told a crowd moments ago.

11.16 am: President Donald Trump has won Florida and its 29 electoral votes, the biggest prize among the “Swing” battlegrounds and a state crucial to his reelection hopes, AP reports.

11.11 am: President Trump will win Florida, CNN projects. There are 29 electoral votes at stake in Florida.

11.09 am: Niraj Antani, a 29-year-old Republican becomes the first Indian-American to be elected to the Ohio state Senate, PTI reports. Antani defeated Mark Fogel of the Democratic Party and was elected as the state Senator for the Ohio Senate’s 6th District, which encompasses most of Montgomery County.

11.08 am: AP projects Joe Biden as the winner of Minnesota.

11.01 am: Trump establishes a lead in Florida, which was one of the main states Biden had hoped to snatch back from the Republican column, The New York Times reports.

10.50 am: President Trump wins Ohio, CNN reports. There are 18 electoral votes at stake in Ohio. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidential election. Since 1944, in every presidential race but one – the 1960 contest between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy – Ohioans have chosen the winner. After picking Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, they voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by eight points in 2016.

10.38 am: In Philadelphia, officials say they have as many as 3,00,000 mail-in ballots left to count, The New York Times reports. Pennsylvania is one of the few states where officials did not begin processing absentee ballots until the election day morning.

10.33 am: In New York, the Republicans currently hold a double-digit lead in four crucial US House races, The New York Times reports. These are: 2nd District, 11th District, 22nd District and 24th District.

10.20 am: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has maintained his lead mid-way through the counting of votes, as Republican incumbent Donald Trump appeared to be fast catching up. The New York Times reports that Biden has earned 209 electoral college votes and Trump 118. The winner needs at least 270 electoral college votes.

As per Fox News, Biden has 223 of the 538 electoral college seats, while Trump has 203. CNN, on the other hand, has projected 192 electoral college votes to Biden and 114 to Trump.

10.15 am: US President Donald Trump appears confident of a victory. “We are going to have a great four years,” Trump tells reporters in Virginia on election day, Reuters reports. “Winning is easy, losing is never easy, especially not for me.”

10.12 am: Here are the results from hotly contested states of Arizona, Carolina, Florida and Texas, based on the votes counted so far.

10.10 am: Democrat contender Joe Biden will win California, Oregon and Washington, while Trump is expected to take Idaho and Utah, AP reports.

10.05 am: Result likely to take days

The vote count has never been certified on election night and 2020 is no different. Counting every single vote will take several days as states have different methods and procedures for counting in-person and mail-in ballots. What potentially complicates things this year is that most states will be counting more mail-in ballots than ever, and their procedures have not been tested at this scale.

Early election results may also suggest President Trump is winning because data shows Republican voters prefer to vote in person rather than by mail.

10.03 am: The early exit polls of Arizona show voters over 65 prefer Biden by 5 percentage points, The New York Times reports.

9.57 am: Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been re-elected to a second term in the US House of Representatives, Al Jazeera reports.

9.49 am: CNN projects that Joe Biden will win California – the biggest prize of the electoral college, with 55 electoral votes.

9.16 am: President Donald Trump has won the state of Missouri, AP reports. The Republican nominee was awarded its 10 electoral votes.

9.15 am: Democrat Joe Biden has won the state of Colorado, AP reports.

9.10 am: Donald Trump is leading in Ohio after trailing initially, The New York Times reports. Since 1944, in every presidential race but one – the 1960 contest between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy – Ohioans have chosen the winner. After picking Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, they voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by eight points in 2016.

9.09 am: AFP visuals of Americans casting their votes in various parts of the country.

8.02 am: Trump on Tuesday said he feels good about his chances for victory as election day opened.

“We feel very good,” Trump told Fox News in a phone interview. He said he expected victory in all the key states that will decide the election, but said he would not “play games” by declaring his win too early.

“We think we are winning Texas very big,” Trump added. “We think we are winning Florida very big. We think we are winning Arizona very big.”

8.00 am: Donald Trump’s campaign claims victory in the must-win state of Florida, though US media says that race was still too close to call. The president’s campaign made the claim in a tweet as ballots were still being counted in the state that holds 29 state-by-state Electoral College votes.

7.58 am: Trump is trailing in Ohio, reports CNN. No Republican candidate has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio.

7.54 am: Trump will win South Dakota, while Biden gains Connecticut, CNN projects.

7.43 am: Joe Biden will win New Jersey, CNN projects. There are 14 electoral votes at stake in New Jersey. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.

7.41 am: Based on the votes counted so far, Joe Biden is leading in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, reports CNN.

7.37 am: AP projections show that Democratic challenger Joe Biden has won New York, Virginia, Vermont Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts.

7.32 am: How does the US vote for its president?

US presidents are not chosen directly but by the Electoral College, a system in which “electoral votes” are assigned to states based on their population and then awarded as a lump sum to the winner of the popular vote in that state. This means that when Americans cast their ballots, they are actually voting for a slate of electors appointed by their state’s political parties who are pledged to support that party’s candidate. Currently, it takes 270 electoral votes to win.

The number of electors from each state is roughly in line with the size of its population. Each state gets as many electors as it has lawmakers in the US Congress

Generally, states award all their electoral college votes to whoever won the poll of ordinary voters in the state. There are only two states – Maine and Nebraska – which divide up their electoral college votes according to the proportion of votes each candidate receives.

This leads to an intense focus on key battleground states, or “swing states” as candidates look to boost their electoral advantage by targeting states that can help them reach the needed 270 votes of the total 538 up for grabs.

This year too, the results are likely to be decided by about a dozen states that could swing to either President Donald Trump, a Republican, or Democratic challenger Joe Biden. These states are: Florida, Georgia, Ohio, New Hampshire among others, according to Reuters.

7.29 am: AP projects Donald Trump has won the state of Indiana, the home state of Trump’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence.

7.28 am: AP projects President Donald Trump has won Kentucky, and Democrat Joe Biden has carried Vermont. They are the first two states called in the 2020 presidential election.

6.45 am: Counting is underway as most polls in key states of Florida and Georgia closed at 7 pm ET (5.30 am IST) and could soon offer a first glimpse of where the election is headed in two battleground states. More than 100 million Americans had already cast ballots.

6.40 am: Supporters of US Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Tuesday held prayers near her ancestral village in Thulasendrapuram, Tamil Nadu. Harris is the first Indian-American woman to get a major party’s vice presidential nomination.

6.33 am: Immigrants in New York braved rain, long lines to vote early in the elections. Voters of the predominantly immigrant Jackson Heights had access to interpreters in five languages — Spanish, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, and Korean.

Read more here.

6.30 am: With Tuesday’s voting, it will also be decided which political party will control the US Congress for the next two years.

6.25 am: Joe Biden, the Democratic former vice president, has had a strong and consistent lead in national polls. However, Donald Trump is said to be closing in swing states to possibly gain 270 state-by-state Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency. In the 2016 election, the Republican candidate had defeated Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by about 3 million ballots.

6.20 am: Here is a schedule on how to follow the 2020 US election results from India. Beyond this, it is hard to say what will happen if results are unclear.

• Actual numbers will only begin coming in much later on Tuesday in the US (early morning Wednesday in India), starting at 6 pm ET, which is 11 pm GMT and 4:30 am in IST, Indian Standard Time.
• Most polls in key states of Florida and Georgia closed at 7 pm ET (5.30 am IST) and could soon offer a first glimpse of where the election is headed in the two battleground states. 
• Four other states, Vermont, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia, with a total of 93 electoral votes when added to Florida and Georgia, closed most of their polls at 7 pm ET ( 5.30 am IST).  
• At 8 pm ET (1 am GMT, 6:30 am IST) counting will begin in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, though most expect final results to take much longer there because of the massive number of mail-in ballots in play this time.
• By 10 pm ET (3 am GMT, 8:30 am IST) results will be streaming in from Texas, Michigan, Arizona, among the main swing states, and many others. In normal years, by this time it is starting to become quite clear what the shape of the electoral college may look like, though of course this year may be considerably different.
• By 11 pm ET (4 am GMT, 9:30 am IST) polls will close in the Western states of California, Oregon and Washington, bringing us much closer to the time when races are usually called, though the Trump-Clinton race was called much later in the early hours of the morning, ET.

6.15 am: Due to an increase in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the differing rules in the states for when ballots can be counted, the results may not be known immediately.

Nearly 100 million people had cast ballots as voting started, a record figure equal to about 70% of the total turnout four years ago.

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