First US presidential election results see Trump take Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia, as Harris wins Vermont
by Kit Heren · LBCBy Kit Heren
The first US presidential election results came in at around midnight UK time, with Donald Trump taking Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana, and Kamala Harris winning Vermont.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Kentucky has eight votes in the electoral college, Indiana has 11, West Virginia has four electoral college votes, and Vermont has three.
Presidential candidates need 270 votes in the electoral college to win the White House.
All three results had been expected.
Polls have also closed in South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, a key battleground state.
There were loud cheers at a London gathering of Democratic Party supporters as Vermont was called for Kamala Harris by a US television network.
Read more: US Election night guide: What time do polls close and who is favourite to win?
Former Trump aide says Kamala Harris does not have a ‘clear message’
UK-based Democrats at the bar clapped and applauded as the state became the first to be called for Ms Harris by CNN, while there was a muted reaction and scattered boos as Kentucky was called for Donald Trump.
Polling day has unfolded relatively smoothly across the United States with only scattered disruptions and delays.
Leading into Tuesday, more than 82 million Americans had already cast their ballots in a largely successful early voting period with high turnout despite some hiccups and frustrations in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania.
And when the final day of voting came, the problems that cropped up were "largely expected routine and planned-for events," said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents affecting election security.
Issues affecting voters on Tuesday included typical election mishaps, from a worker forgetting a key in Arizona's largest county to an election judge failing to show up at the polls in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County. Some precincts around the country faced issues with voter check-in processes and e-pollbooks, causing some delays for voters trying to cast ballots. Some areas had ballot printing mistakes and were printing new ballots and extending voting hours accordingly.
Extreme weather across the middle of the country also caused flooding and some other isolated problems, including knocking out power for at least one Missouri polling place that resorted to a generator to keep voting up and running.
Still, in various states affected by rain, voters enthusiastically huddled under umbrellas as they queued up to cast their ballots, not deterred in a presidential election that many US voters view as crucially important to the future of US democracy.
In the western part of the key swing state of Pennsylvania, a few counties saw reports of issues with tabulator machines that scan and count paper ballots filled in by voters. A Pennsylvania state judge ordered polls to remain open for two extra hours in Cambria County, which voted 68% for former president Donald Trump in 2020. The county sought the extension after a software malfunction affected the ballot-scanning machines, though county officials said no one was turned away from the polls and all ballots would be counted.
In Georgia, another presidential swing state, fewer than a dozen precincts were set to stay open late because of delayed openings or evacuations due to alleged bomb threats that were found to be non-credible, according to secretary of state Brad Raffensperger. That included two precincts in Cobb County, which is north-west of Atlanta. They were staying open until 7.20pm because they opened late due to equipment issues.
The FBI on Tuesday afternoon said it was aware of multiple non-credible bomb threats to polling locations in several states and said many of them appeared to originate from Russian email domains.
The massive early voting turnout before Tuesday - slightly more than half the total number of votes in the presidential election four years earlier - was driven partly by Republican voters, who cast early ballots at a higher rate than in recent previous elections after a campaign by Mr Trump and the Republican National Committee to counter the Democrats' long-standing advantage in the early vote.
The early voting period faced minimal problems, even in western North Carolina, which was hammered last month by Hurricane Helene. State and local election officials, benefiting from changes made by the Republican-controlled legislature, pulled off a herculean effort to ensure residents could cast their ballots as they dealt with power outages, lack of water and washed out roads. That appeared to continue on Tuesday, with the North Carolina Board of Elections reporting no voting issues.
Besides the hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida, the most worrisome disruptions to the election season so far were arson attacks that damaged ballots in two drop boxes near the Oregon-Washington border. Authorities there were still searching for the person responsible.
The absence of any significant, widespread problems has not stopped Mr Trump, the Republican nominee, or the RNC, from making numerous claims of fraud or election interference during the early voting period, a possible prelude to challenges after polling day.
Mr Trump on Tuesday suggested he would not challenge the results of the election - as long as it is fair.
"If it's a fair elections, I'd be the first one to acknowledge" the results, Mr Trump said. It was not clear, hpowever, what he sees as meeting that definition.