US election day voting begins | BBC News

good morning this is BBC News just after 7:00 a.m. here in Philadelphia I'm Anna Foster and you can see already long lines of people forming to cast their vote on Election Day here in America a day that many people are calling the most consequential election in decades it has been a dramatic campaign that has seen an assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump here in the state of Pennsylvania and also a change of the Democratic candidate Midway through the campaign it was only just over a 100 days ago that Joe Biden the incumbent stepped aside

and Carmela Harris became the Democratic candidate and already we know that it is an incredibly close race many of the polls are showing it as too close to call and that is why you're seeing so many people turning out here this morning already the Queue at this particular polling station right in the center of the city you can probably see behind me goes down the block and we've just been watching them finalizing the preparations inside they've got the voting machines ready and switched on they've got on the wall outside in all kinds of different languages

instructions for people actually when they get inside there what they need to do how they need to cast their ballot and despite the two camps spending well billions of pounds on Advertising not just here in this state but right across the country the opinion polls as we were saying remain deadlocked particularly in those crucial seven swing states that both sides are trying to win and it's all about marginal advantages right now and that is what we saw last night in those final rallies those flying visits that both candidates were making right across the country last

night these seven swing states are absolutely key they are where this election will be one and lost because they are states that have voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates over the last few years they are Georgia Arizona Nevada Wisconsin Michigan North Carolina and of course here in Pennsylvania the biggest of those swing States in terms of Electoral College votes with 19 up for grabs our correspondent Tom bitan was following those last late night rallies Philadelphia welcome the next president of these United States Kamala Harris a campaign Crescendo for carela Harris it was a star

studded rally in Philadelphia where the vice president took to the stage and an adoring crowd of democrat fans watched her final pitch for the White House I am looking to make progress and I pledge to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make I pledge to listen to experts I pledge to listen to people who disagree with me because you see I don't believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy I'll give them a seat at the table that's what real leaders do that's what strong leaders do well with

those words and this crowd they bring to an end what has been one of the most unpredictable and contentious election campaigns in this nation's history and now it's over to the voters Statewide we have knocked 700,000 Democrat volunteers have come to Pennsylvania from across America aiming to persuade undecided voters and flooding the doorsteps today to get their base out taking voters to the polls canvasing um um you know making sure people stay in line to vote after they the polls do close or when they're a long wait so anything in everything and Pennsylvania has been

the final push for team Trump too in the countryside rally goers Q at dawn hoping to build campaign momentum with a message for American workers their paychecks are getting robbed by inflation and taxes and this person is the only one who actually says the truth and says that you know what's going on is is not right just a few tens of thousands of votes could swing this state and therefore the national result either way of all the swing States this one is the biggest prize and that is why both candidates have been coming back here

right until the end but they haven't been budging the needle the opinion polls still put Pennsylvania as a dead heat Tennessee and for Donald Trump a return to form last night ending his tour in Grand Rapids Michigan where he finaled his last two campaigns it is another critical swing state with your vote tomorrow we can fix every single problem our country faces and Lead America indeed world to new heights of Glory going to need think of that statement how beautiful that is new heights of Glory that's what's going to happen when we in a vote

this close counting in the swing States could take days or longer they will hold the key to this election while America and the whole world watches and wait Tom bitman BBC News Philadelphia and Tom was just talking there about how close the race is in the state of Pennsylvania and I think you can really see how engaged people are how fired up they are by this this day of democracy you know people have been able to vote in advance for a couple of weeks ago uh for a couple of weeks now but when you look

at the fact that it is 6 minutes past 7 in the morning and look I'm just going to step out so you can see actually these cues that are going on behind me as people line up sort of slowly shuffling forward to head into the polling station and cast their vote and it's not just about the presidential election today American voters are also deciding who will control Congress vital in terms of actually the kind of legislation the kind of control that a president can have there are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives that

are being elected here uh and also 34 seats in the Senate which are up for grabs as well and when you look at where the control is now and how it might change well analysts have predicted that the Republicans actually have a good chance of taking back the Senate because it's a very very slim Democratic majority in the Senate at the moment but the flip side of that is they could lose the house because Democrats only need to win four seats to regain control of the House of Representatives and as with so much these elections

here in the US the outcome is likely to be decided by just a small number of contests but it will have as we were saying that huge impact on how easily the next president will be able to govern do the things that they've promised to do during their campaign at least until the next Congressional elections the midterms in 2026 and actually it's worth taking a moment just to to explain how things work here because the US election is an absolutely huge exercise around 240 million people eligible to vote in total and a third of them

82 million have already voted early either in person or by post and the reason we talk about States like this one States like Pennsylvania is because it comes down to Electoral College votes you could as Hillary Clinton did in 2016 get more votes here Across America than anybody else but that's not what it's about it's about the Electoral College it is a sort of series of different bits of Patchwork put together and that is why States like this are vital 50 state elections in effect John Kay explains how it works the president is not chosen

directly by voters but by something called the Electoral College each of the 50 states gets a certain number of votes in that Electoral College depending on the size of its population the size of the circles here represents the number of votes that each state gets for example the most populated state is California it gets 54 votes it's largely Democrat so if more people vote Democrat in California all 54 votes go to the Harris Camp whereas Texas the second largest state is largely Republican so all of its 40 votes are likely to go to Donald Trump

the total number of electoral College votes across all 50 states is 500 and 38 so the overall winner is the first candidate to get more than half of them 50% plus one of the Electoral College is what they need so the magic number is 270 so that's how it'll all break down and here's a reminder of how you can watch and follow every Twist and Turn of those presidential election results here across the BBC join us in the BBC's us election Studio as we find out who will be America's next president now whether the winner

is Vice President kamla Harris or former president Donald Trump it will be an historic night right across the country we'll have all of our top correspondents and editors bringing you the unfolding drama as soon as the polls close we'll have all the results as they come in and Christian Frasier will look in depth at what they mean in the race for the White House here is the map white clean in the race to 270 these in Gray are the seven Battleground States we think will decide who wins the White House so for expert analysis and

for what the story means to America and the rest of the world Join Me Katrina Perry and me Sumi masanda in Washington DC for the BBC's us election results program it's a contest that is just too close to call