The closing of polling stations in the USA is expected to begin in a few hours

It’s election day in the USA. This year, voters across the country are choosing who they want to send to the White House for the next four years. In addition, 34 seats in the Senate, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 13 governorships and a number of local elected offices must be decided.

This blog will be updated throughout the night.

The first polling stations close at 6 p.m

The first polls will close at 6 p.m. Eastern Time in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. Polls in parts of both states that are in the Central Time Zone will remain open until 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

At 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, all polls will close in half the states in the country: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey , North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

Polls will remain open no later than Alaska, closing at 1 a.m. Eastern Time.

On Tuesday, The Associated Press’ tracking of nationwide early voting showed that more than 82 million ballots were cast before Election Day, representing just over half the total number of votes cast in the presidential election four years ago.

Still, in many of these states it will take hours, if not days, for results to be announced.

The presidential election is expected to produce results in some battleground states.

Bomb threat hoaxes targeted polling places in three of those swing states – Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, the FBI said Tuesday. According to the FBI, many of the threats appeared to come from Russian email domains.

“To date, none of the threats have been determined to be credible,” the FBI said in a statement, adding that election integrity is among the FBI’s top priorities.

At least two polling stations that were targeted by false bomb threats in Georgia were briefly evacuated Tuesday.

Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, blamed Russian interference.

“They are obviously up to mischief. “They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” Raffensperger told reporters.