The counting of American voters continues in 5 crucial states amid an atmosphere of tension, as Republican candidate Donald Trump declared victory before the count is complete, while Democratic candidate Joe Biden's campaign confirmed that he is heading to victory.
According to preliminary results as of Thursday dawn, Biden is on the doorstep of the White House, after winning the votes in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Tens of millions of Americans cast their votes, Tuesday, to choose the next president, after an election campaign dominated by the emerging coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis, which has caused the death of more than 238,000 people in the United States.
The following are the developments of voting up-to-date GMT:
Thursday 5th November:
21:51 Addison Research Center: Trump got 50.1% versus 48.6% for Biden after counting 92% of the crucial Pennsylvania state vote.
21:30 Trump's campaign files a lawsuit in Pennsylvania claiming to prevent Republican observers from entering vote counting centers, and the campaign is losing two court rulings in the hotly contested states of Georgia and Michigan, while it pledged to file a new lawsuit to challenge what it described as voting irregularities in Nevada.
20:56 Democratic candidate Joe Biden in a speech in Delaware: Work is underway to count every vote now and Kamala Harris and I have a good feeling about the current trajectory.
20:42 NBC on behalf of Pentagon officials: Defense Secretary Mark Esper has prepared his resignation letter.
20:30 Georgia State Election Commission: Ballot papers are still arriving at the counting centers, and it is difficult to predict when the counting will end.
20:15 Supporters and opponents of Trump demonstrated in front of the polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and security forces put up barriers to separate the two parties.
19:30 CNN about an advisor to Trump: The president discussed with his aides preparing for the race in 2024 if he loses this election.
19:00 US media said that the counting operations have ended in Fulton, the largest county in the state of Georgia, and that their results will be announced soon.
18:50 The Secretary of State of Pennsylvania said it is likely that the winner of the state will be known today.
Pro-Trump supporters and opponents demonstrate in Philadelphia (Getty Images)
17:50 A Michigan court has given the state 21 days to respond to the Trump campaign's lawsuit for early ballot counting.
17:45 A Georgia election official said that the state's vote count may continue into this evening.
17:40 Biden in a Tweet: Be patient, friends, the vote count continues, and we are satisfied with our situation.
17:40 Michigan state announced, in official preliminary results, Biden winning with 50.60% of the vote, against Trump's 47.87%.
Be patient folks.
Votes are being counted, and we feel good about where we are.
- Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020
17:40 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned a ruling allowing the Trump campaign to tighten control over vote counting processes.
17:25 Trump in Tweet: Stop fraud!
17:15 The difference widened in the state of Nevada slightly to 12,000 votes in favor of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
17:10 A judge in Georgia dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump campaign seeking to make sure that absentee voting laws are being followed.
17:05 Al-Jazeera correspondent said that the counting of votes was suspended temporarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, following a court decision allowing observers of the Trump campaign.
16:00 CNN: Biden campaign expects to win the presidency by a noticeable margin.
15:30 Trump says in a tweet that no vote received after Election Day will be counted, and Twitter is classifying the tweet as "controversial and potentially misleading."
15:05 The New York Times: Biden is narrowing the gap with Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia, as Trump continues to advance by a slight margin.
ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
15:00 Fox News: Biden is very close to getting the 270 total votes required in the electoral college to declare his victory.
14:20 Trump in Tweet: Stop the vote count.
12:07 Edison Research Center: After counting 96% of the vote in Georgia, Trump gets 49.6%, Biden 49.2%.
07:00 A group of Trump supporters protest in front of a polling station in Arizona, questioning the results.
STOP THE COUNT!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
06:30 Georgia state authorities say vote counting will continue tonight.
05:30 California voters approved in a referendum Tuesday to strengthen their state's privacy law, despite opposition from organizations that see this reform open the door to abuse by tech companies.
In the United States, a series of local referendum votes are usually held in conjunction with the presidential and legislative elections.
03:00 Edison Research Center: After counting 95% of the vote in the crucial state of North Carolina, Trump gets 50.1% to Biden's 48.7%.
02:31 Edison Research Center: After counting 88% of the vote in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, Trump got 50.9% of the vote against Biden's 47.8%.
02:14 Edison Research Center: After counting 86% of the vote in the crucial state of Arizona, Trump got 47.9% against Biden's 50.7%.
02:12 Edison Research Center: After counting 86% of the vote in the crucial state of Nevada, Trump got 48.7% of the vote against Biden's 49.3%.
02:11 Edison Research Center: After counting 95% of the vote in the crucial state of Georgia, Trump gets 49.8% to Biden's 49.0.
02:00 Democratic candidate Joe Biden pledges that the United States will join again, from the first day of his term, to the Paris climate agreement from which the Trump administration had already withdrawn.
01:30 Protests against President Trump start in Minneapolis, Ohio, and Boston, Massachusetts, calling for all votes to be counted in the presidential election.
01:00 Demonstration in Chicago calling for all votes counted in the US presidential election.
00:50 US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Democratic candidate Joe Biden is close to winning the presidency.
00:40 White House spokeswoman: We will win the elections if the vote counting processes are fair, but we object to counting the votes that arrive at the counting centers after polling day.
00:15 An official with the Elections Commission in Georgia announced that he expects to complete the counting of the remaining votes by midnight local time, indicating that there are 142,000 ballot papers that have not been counted yet and their results will be announced later.
00:00 President Trump's campaign files a lawsuit to stop vote counting in Georgia.
Wednesday 4 November:
23:55 Bloomberg News said that Democratic candidate Joe Biden's victory in Michigan and Wisconsin puts him on the verge of winning the presidency, after winning 264 votes in the electoral college.
23:30 Pennsylvania Governor: Trump's plea to stop the state's vote counting is wrong and goes against the basic principles of our democracy.
22:25 Biden campaign considers the calls for a recount of Wisconsin to be "pathetic", and that Donald Trump lost Wisconsin and losing Michigan and the presidency.
22:20 Trump announces, via Twitter, that he has won the state of Michigan in addition to Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and Twitter places a warning flag on the tweet to include information that may be misleading.
22:15 Fox News: Biden needs to win one more swing state after winning Michigan to become President of the United States.
22:05 In response to the Trump campaign, the Michigan State Attorney's Office confirmed that the state's electoral process was transparent.
Warning on fake media accounts declaring one candidate winning in states (Getty Images)
21:55 Republican Rudy Giuliani - former New York City mayor - says that votes by mail are easy to forge, and what happens in Pennsylvania is illegal vote counting, and the city of Philadelphia has a historical reputation for vote rigging, and that there are violations in the counting of votes in Wisconsin, Nevada and Michigan.
21:45 Democratic candidate Joe Biden won Michigan state, according to CNN and NBC.
21:40 Joe Biden expects to win the election, expressing his belief that it is clear that his campaign is achieving victory in enough states to win the presidency.
21:25 The director of the US Cybersecurity Agency warns of false media accounts announcing the victory of one of the candidates in the states.
21:15 Biden says he has clearly won enough states to win the presidency, and will only announce victory when the vote count is over.
21:00 Bill Stephen, the campaign manager of US President Donald Trump, announced that the latter would request a recount in Wisconsin, and indicated that reports of irregularities in several areas of Wisconsin would raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.
Biden said he has clearly won enough states to win the presidency (Getty Images)
20:55 US Department of Homeland Security official: There is no evidence that any foreign force can prevent the vote or change the vote.
20:45 The head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission to monitor the US elections criticized what he considered "baseless allegations" for President Trump about fraud, saying that this undermines confidence in democracy.
20:40 President Trump's campaign announced that it has filed a court petition to halt the counting of votes in Pennsylvania, after petitions it filed regarding Michigan and Wisconsin.
20:35 A senior Trump campaign adviser called on Fox News and the Associated Press to withdraw their expectation that Biden would win Arizona immediately.
20:30 Bill Stephen, Trump's campaign manager, said they would announce his victory in Pennsylvania, stressing that it is not based on intuition or sentiment but on numbers.
He added, "Without our action, the people of Pennsylvania and the Americans will have to wait days to find out the election result."
20:20 The Trump campaign said it will take additional legal measures to ensure the integrity of the election in Pennsylvania, and also announced that it will file a lawsuit to prevent Democrats from hiding vote counting from their observers.
Protesters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, demanding that all votes be counted (Reuters)
19:05 Biden campaign said Trump's campaign request for a recount in Wisconsin is an attempt to cover up the defeat.
19:00 President Trump said in a tweet on Twitter that he was winning big in Pennsylvania, but added that the state secretary announced that millions of ballot papers had not been counted yet.
19:00 The Trump campaign said in a statement that it has filed a lawsuit in Michigan to stop the vote count.
18:45 The Biden campaign manager said they are confident that the Democratic candidate will get 270 votes in the electoral college, and they will declare his victory as soon as this number is reached.
18:40 Republican Senator from Maine Susan Collins declares her victory and diminishes the chances of the Democrats to win the Senate majority.
18:30 The Arizona Secretary of State says hundreds of thousands of ballots have not yet been counted in the state, and cautioned against any wins celebrated now.
17:50 The Trump campaign announced that it would request a recount in Wisconsin immediately, after unofficial results showed Biden narrowly winning.
17:05 President Trump said in a tweet on Twitter, "They are finding votes for Biden in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan," adding that "work is underway to hide 500,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and elsewhere."
15:20 Biden campaign said in a press briefing that the Democratic candidate is heading to victory in the presidential elections, confirming that he is on his way to winning in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by a greater margin than Trump achieved in 2016.
15:15 President Trump said in a tweet on Twitter that he was ahead in important states yesterday, "and then these states began to magically disappear," as he put it.
And Twitter placed a warning on this tweet to indicate that some of what it included about the elections may be misleading.
Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled.
Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.
VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
14:50 The assistant governor of Pennsylvania said at a press conference that it is too early to set a date for the state's vote counting to complete.
11:27 The Nevada Election Commission says, "We haven't counted the early ballots that arrived on Tuesday and those that haven't yet arrived by mail."
08:55 Biden's election campaign says, "We will legally confront Trump if he goes to the Supreme Court to prevent accurate counting of votes ... and Trump's attempt to stop the vote count is an outrageous and unprecedented act."
08:20 Pennsylvania governor says, "We have a million votes in the mail not yet sorted and Trump's comments are biased."
08:05 The preliminary results of the presidential election show Biden winning the Maine vote, thus securing 238 votes in the electoral college against 213 votes for Trump.
07:55 The preliminary results of the presidential election show Biden winning the Arizona votes, thus ensuring 236 votes in the electoral college compared to 213 votes for Trump.
Vote counting in Detroit, Michigan (French)
07:30 Vice President Mike Pence says after Trump's speech, "I thank the 60 million Americans who voted for Trump to stay in the White House for another four years."
07:29 Trump says in a speech at the White House, "We won these states and it is clear that there is a fraud against the American people ... We will win these elections and we have already won them ... It is clear that there is a fraud against the people ... This is an important moment in the history of our nation and we will resort to the Supreme Court to stop Counting the late votes. "
07:27 TRUMP: "We won Michigan as we won Wisconsin and we didn't need it."
07:25 TRUMP: "We won Florida, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, and it's hard to catch up with us ... and we're winning in Pennsylvania with a huge number of votes."
07:22 TRUMP: Millions of people voted for us and a sad group is trying to rob us of that, and we won't allow it.
Trump addresses the White House (Reuters)
07:10 Biden secures 225 electoral votes against 213 for Trump.
06:35 The most prominent states that have not announced their results yet are North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.
06:09 Preliminary results show Trump wins the vote for the state of Texas, and Biden is guaranteed 224 votes in the electoral college against 213 votes for Trump.
06:05 Twitter puts a warning flag on Trump's tweet accusing Democrats of stealing the election.
05:50 Trump says in a tweet on Twitter, "We did very well, but they are trying to steal the election and we will never let them do that."
05:40 Biden gives a speech in Delaware and says, "We are on our way to winning the election, but we have to be patient until the vote counting is completely over."
Biden gives a speech among his supporters in Wilmington, Delaware (Reuters)
05:35 Biden secures 223 electoral votes against Trump's 174.
05:27 Preliminary presidential election results show Trump wins Montana vote.
05:22 Preliminary results of the presidential election show Trump wins the votes for Iowa and Ohio.
05:21 Biden secures 223 electoral votes against Trump's 145 votes.
05:17 Preliminary results from the presidential election show Biden winning the votes from Minnesota, and the Deputy Biden campaign manager writes on Twitter, "The Democrats will win the presidential race."
Voices shouted in Wisconsin (Reuters)
05:14 Biden secures 223 electoral votes against Trump's 118 votes.
05:05 Preliminary results of the presidential election show Biden winning the Hawaiian vote.
05:00 Biden guarantees 213 electoral votes against Trump's 118 votes.
04:59 Trump wins crucial states of Texas and Florida, according to Fox News.
04:45 Bloomberg says final results in hotly-contested Michigan are unlikely to be available until Wednesday evening.
04:25 CNN confirms that Trump is leading in Pennsylvania (20 seats), Michigan (16 seats) and Wisconsin (10 seats), while Biden is leading in Arizona (11 seats).
04:15 Biden secures 209 electoral votes against Trump's 118.
04:11 Trump wins Idaho, according to preliminary results, bringing the number of states he won to 17.
04:05 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that two million votes have not been counted in Virginia yet and that her Democratic party has maintained its majority in the House of Representatives, adding, "We will continue to work for equality in our country and enact laws we desperately need."
04:00 Preliminary results show Biden winning the votes of California, Oregon, Washington and New Hampshire.
03:50 According to estimates reported by Fox News and ABC, Democrats will retain control of the US House of Representatives and will win between four and five additional seats in the 435-seat House, knowing that they currently hold 232 of its seats.
03:40 Initial results show Trump wins Missouri and Kansas votes.
03:20 Initial results show Biden wins votes in Washington DC and Colorado state.
03:00 Fox News expects Democrats to maintain a majority in the House and add 5 new seats.
02:45 The US presidential election results showed Democratic candidate Joe Biden winning 131 votes in the electoral college, compared to 93 votes for Republican candidate Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.
Biden won 13 states: Vermont, Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Mexico, New York, the District of Columbia and Colorado.
In exchange for Trump's victory in 14 states, they are: Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Louisiana and Nebraska.
02:42 US President Donald Trump's campaign announced his victory in Florida, which is key to his re-election, in a result that none of the country's main media outlets have confirmed.
02:34 Polling stations closed their doors to American voters in 8 new states: Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Minesta.
01:58 The results of the US presidential election showed Democratic candidate Joe Biden winning 85 votes in the electoral college, compared to 72 votes for Republican candidate Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.
Biden won 9 states: Vermont, Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
In return for Trump's victory in 9 states: Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Indiana.
01:50 Initial indications showed Trump narrowly ahead of Democratic rival Joe Biden in the vital state of Florida, while other swing states that will help determine the outcome of the elections, such as Georgia and North Carolina, remained without a clear result.
01:05 Preliminary US presidential election results show Biden winning in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Delaware and Connecticut.
01:05 Preliminary US presidential election results show Trump wins Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Missouri.
00:35 Initial indications by US media showed that President Trump won in Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia, while his rival, Joe Biden, won in Vermont and Virginia.
00:24 Polling stations closed in the US presidential elections in 6 eastern states, namely: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Vermont and Virginia.
Update on Tuesday, 3 November GMT:
23:54 American experts have predicted that the participation rate in the 2020 US presidential elections will reach 67%, the highest in a century, according to local media.
23:34 CNN quoted the White House Communications Director as confirming that President Donald Trump is following the vote count in the presidential elections from the West Wing of the White House, accompanied by a number of his senior officials and members of his family.
Trump said - in a tweet he posted on his Twitter account - "We are in a really good situation across the country ... Thank you."
23:31 On Tuesday, Twitter and Facebook suspended a number of "right-leaning" news accounts recently established, which spread misleading information about voting in the US elections, in violation of the general policy of the signatories.
The two sites said that the deleted accounts spread news alleging Democrats' election fraud in a number of states, as well as highlighting President Donald Trump's election rallies and speeches.
23:05 The polling stations closed in the US presidential elections in areas of Indiana and Kentucky.
22:37 Vermont Gov. Phil Scott announced the vote for Joe Biden, to be the first Republican official to acknowledge the election of the Democratic presidential candidate.
22:35 "The election battle is tough in Florida, but voting is still going on, and we think tonight we will know where things are going," said a Joe Biden campaign official.
In a statement to CNN, she added that Biden will address the nation tonight, regardless of the outcome.
22:08 Former US President Barack Obama posted a video clip on his personal Twitter account calling on Americans to determine their fate by voting for Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
This Election Day, everything is on the line.
Our jobs.
Our health care.
Whether or not we get this pandemic under control.
But here's the good news: today, you can choose change.
You can elect a retweeté
Let's win this thing.
pic.twitter.com/rvW2uOknpl
- Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 3, 2020
21:56 Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, called on the American people to vote for her father in the presidential elections, due to his efforts to spread peace and his sponsorship of normalization agreements between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan.
VOTE for the PEACE✌️President - @realDonaldTrump is leading with strength and ending the endless foreign wars!
pic.twitter.com/PaiKeKGRmu
- Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 3, 2020
21:41 The FBI has begun investigating reported automated phone calls urging American voters to stay safe at home and not vote in the ongoing presidential election.
21:12 Former US President Bill Clinton announced that he and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, voted in the elections for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris.
20:44 Democratic candidate Joe Biden called on his supporters to choose hope over fear, truth over lies, science over fiction.
Biden pledged - in his speech to a limited crowd in Philadelphia, using a loudspeaker - to better control the Corona pandemic, which has killed more than 232,000 people in the United States.
20:25 New York State Attorney's Office is investigating allegations of misleading calls urging voters to stay home on Election Day.
20:05 Al-Jazeera correspondent said that the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, one of the most critical states for the elections, will broadcast the counting process live on the air to respond to any allegations of corruption or fraud.
19:05 The Connecticut Secretary of State said the state had 75% vote at noon.
18:30 Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered a blanket survey at post offices today, to ensure all early voting cards are delivered without delay.
18:05 President Trump visited his campaign headquarters in Virginia, where he told reporters that he had a very good feeling about the elections, and that he believed the results would be "excellent," adding, "We should not delay the announcement of the election result for days."
Trump indicated that voting by mail could lead to negative things, and that the result should have been announced by the end of Election Day.
And he said he might talk to the American people tonight.
18:00 American media said that officials are warning citizens in several states of misleading calls calling them to vote tomorrow instead of today.
Trump visits his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia (Reuters)
17:55 The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating phone calls asking voters in some states to "stay safe" in their homes.
17:10 The United States Elections Project said in its latest census that the number of Americans who voted in early voting exceeded 100 million, before the official start of Election Day, a record number that constitutes more than 72% of the total participants. In the 2016 elections.
17:00 Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, called on voters to be patient while awaiting this year's election result.
"It is important to realize that this process may take time," he told reporters.
Polling station in Edinburgh, Ohio (European)
15:10 First lady Melania Trump cast her vote at a polling station in Palm Beach, Florida, and President Trump had cast his vote in Florida a few days ago as part of the early vote.
14:30 The Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, arrived with his family in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is one of the critical states of the elections, as he follows the polls from there. He had started election day by visiting his son’s grave in Wilmington, Delaware.
Melania Trump arrives at a polling station in Palm Beach, Florida (Reuters)
13:10 US President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview to Fox News that he feels good about his chances of winning the election.
Trump appeared to try to assuage fears that he might declare his victory before the official results are released in various states.
When asked when he will announce his victory, he said, "Only when we have achieved victory," and added that "there is no reason to play games."
"I think we will achieve a victory. We believe that we will achieve a very big win in Texas, a very big win in Florida, and a very big win in Arizona," he said.
He saw that he would do well in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
11:50 Polling stations open in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia.
11:45 Republican Senator Marco Rubio says, "Whoever wins the elections today will be our legitimate president, regardless of who he is."
Biden and his family arrive in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on election day (Reuters)
11:00 Polling stations open in Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.
05:00 Five voters cast their ballots in Dixville Notch, a small village of just 12 people (Northeastern USA), in a symbolic start to the election by midnight Tuesday, reviving a tradition adopted since 1960 that earned it the nickname "The First in the Country".
And the five voters voted for Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Voting begins in Dixville Notch Village (Reuters)
At about the same time, voting began in the neighboring village of Millsfield, and there is a third village in the area that follows the same tradition, but it canceled night voting this year due to the Corona pandemic.
Electoral laws in this state allow towns - with fewer than 100 residents - to open polling stations from midnight.