America reaches Election Day, voters go to polls

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00:00Well let's go live then to Washington DC to the Capitol speak to Fraser Jackson

00:04our correspondent there. Fraser it's just gone 9 a.m. where you are pretty

00:09early on in the day give us a sense of how the next few hours are going to look

00:15and where polls are open so far as well. Yeah it's kind of hard to believe isn't

00:21it after such a long build-up election day is finally here of course over 75

00:27million Americans have already voted in this election but this is election day

00:32well we had the first official votes of election day at midnight at the the

00:39small town in New Hampshire which has become famous for this particular

00:44tradition and now in that small town of just six voters there were no registered

00:51Democrats there were three registered Republicans and three independents and

00:55it ended up being a three-all tie between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

01:00so of course quite a small sample size but if you extend that out across the

01:04rest of the country it could be good news if you're if you're Kamala Harris

01:08and bad news if you're Donald Trump but there are many more Americans now

01:12getting to have their say most polls open at 7 a.m. local time so there are

01:17still a few states which are still waiting for their polls to open notably

01:21on the west coast California and the like of course no real surprises or

01:26guesses which way that is going to go or Oregon or indeed Washington that whole

01:31blue wall on the left-hand side of the country but the rest of the country is

01:36also still voting now so we're going to be watching closely and to see what

01:42turnout looks like at the moment because people are going to be heading to the

01:46polls there's obviously been quite a lot of discussion about the wait time that

01:51people are going to be having at those polling stations there's been some some

01:55advice put forward by the ACLU which is a legal a legal union here in the United

02:01States who says that people should head to the polls and stay there for as long

02:05as they can and whether their polls are closed at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. if they are in

02:10line they have the right to vote so people will be doing that today and you

02:14know tried to make their voices heard and Fraser this evening when polls do

02:19close give us a sense of which particular states we should have our

02:23eyes on and what clues they might offer us for the hours to come well of course

02:32the the the real place that this election is going to be won or lost is

02:36going to be in those seven battleground states that's all the both candidates

02:40have been spending so much of their time in over the course of the last couple of

02:44months so we're thinking Michigan and Wisconsin Pennsylvania in the north and

02:49then in the south we're looking at Georgia North Carolina as well as

02:52Arizona as well so it's going to be an interesting and Nevada of course it's

02:58going to be interesting to see the results that come out of those places

03:03first and foremost because that really is going to dictate where this election

03:07goes particularly in those northern states because realistically whoever

03:11wins Pennsylvania is arguably going to to win this election that's what most

03:16people are going to be looking out for it should be worth noting that the

03:19campaigns are not really expecting full results from Pennsylvania this evening

03:24but they are result expecting some results relatively early on from places

03:28like Michigan and Wisconsin full results from Pennsylvania should come later on

03:33but it's also going to be interesting as well to keep an eye on some places like

03:36Virginia and New Hampshire which are Democratic strongholds but the Trump

03:40campaign believes that they've been making some inroads in those states as

03:44well so if we look at the numbers from New Hampshire from 2020 and Virginia as

03:50well and compare them to what we're seeing coming out of those two states

03:53within the next few hours that could also be a telltale sign of which way

03:59this night is going to go so lots to keep our eyes on over the course of the

04:03next few hours but of course it could be sometime until we get the actual

04:08official result last time it took four days until we knew who the winner was

04:12but there is a strong belief in the country this time that it's going to be

04:15less less time than it was last time Fraser Jackson for us in Washington DC

04:21for the moment thanks very much but I suspect we will be speaking again to

04:25Fraser as we keep an eye on this historic election in the United States

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