The election that will determine America's future is just hours away.
Donald Trump faces off against Kamala Harris in the race for the White House in 2024 after Joe Biden dropped out following his disastrous first debate with Trump.
Since then, Democrats and Republicans have traded blows and threats.
But the wait is over.
The US election will be held on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
The winner will serve four years in the White House, starting with his inauguration on January 20, 2025.
Voters will choose not only a president, but also congressional candidates for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
What are the key states where the battle will be fought?
The road to the White House actually passes through several key states that play a huge role on election day.
The states are usually split and go between Democrats and Republicans by a narrow margin.
Pennsylvania and its 19 Electoral College votes have proven critical in the last few presidential elections and 2024 will be no different.
To win the presidency, Trump will need to flip Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada, which Biden won by narrow margins in 2020.
Florida and Ohio were safe territory for Republicans in the last election. Today, however, nothing is clear.
What will happen on election day?
The majority of voters go to the polls today. Many people have already voted in advance using the postal or early voting system.
All polling stations open between 6am and 7am local time (after 1pm Bulgarian time).
Polling station closing times vary from state to state, but usually start at around 19:00 local time.
The time zone difference in the US means that on the East Coast ballots will already be counted, while voters in states like Alaska and Hawaii will still be heading to the polls.
Overnight, polls in the US will close at different times, usually every hour.
As soon as this happens, US news networks can 'announce' that a state has endorsed Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
In states that traditionally vote solidly Republican (such as Wyoming and Oklahoma) or Democrat (California and New York), this is likely to happen almost at the exact moment the polls close, before a single vote is officially counted.
But where the race is expected to be close, in so-called "swing states" such as Arizona, Georgia or Pennsylvania, TV networks will have to wait until most votes are counted and reported before making a prediction.
For this reason, the outcome in some states may not be clear for days.
In 2020. Pennsylvania was the state that gave Joe Biden enough votes to guarantee he would become president, but most US TV networks did not declare him president until the Saturday after the election - a four-day wait.
A total of 270 electoral votes are needed to win the US presidential election.
Each state receives a certain number of electoral votes, which is roughly determined by its population.
Whoever wins the popular vote in a state also wins all of that state's electoral votes (with two exceptions - Maine and Nebraska). | BGNES
