Stay up? Here’s everything you need to know about the US elections

The polls will now be closer Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont And Virginiabut these are not swing states, so the results will be predictable.

But voting will also close in the first swing state of the night, Georgia. A win for either candidate could be a strong indication of the direction the election could go.

Georgia was narrowly won by Joe Biden last time. It also became the subject of false claims by Trump, who is accused of a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 defeat.

The candidate with more votes than anyone else in Georgia gets 16 crucial votes out of 538 under the electoral college system.

Harris and Trump both want to secure a majority of 270 electoral college votes to win the White House. That is more important than the ‘popular vote’ or the national support they receive.

Shortly afterwards, at 7:30 PM EST (00:30 GMT), polls close in three more states, including North Carolina. Outside of the presidential election, there is great interest in the battle for state governor, pitting Attorney General Josh Stein against Trump-backed candidate Mark Robinson, whose campaign has been hit by scandal.

The polling stations close at the same time Ohiowhere Trump’s running mate JD Vance is a senator. Meanwhile, the two campaigns will gather at their headquarters tonight – which we know will be in West Palm Beach. Floridain the case of Trump.

At this point, some states could be ‘called out’ by the US media. They use models to project (or determine) which way a state voted, even before the full number of votes have been counted.

This happens when they believe that a candidate has gained an advantage that cannot be defeated by his opponent. In some closely contested swing states, this could take a long time.

The models the media use are based on a variety of data, such as exit polls and actual votes counted by officials. The BBC gets this data from a company called Edison Research.