Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email to get exclusive U.S. reporting and analysis delivered to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

This Election Day, voters across America are heading to the polls to cast their votes for the 47th President of the United States.

As election workers count ballots and voting data is released, the media will begin calling states this evening that favor either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. While the media will likely announce the final outcome in the days or weeks after November 5, their decision is always just a prediction. The election will be officially certified by Congress on January 6th.

NBC News and other media outlets released the results of their election polls on Tuesday afternoon. Voters cited the state of democracy as their top issue, while the economy came in second.

Traditionally, exit polls are conducted through face-to-face interviews with voters outside polling stations after they have cast their votes. Pollsters are stationed outside polling stations before and on election day. They also conduct phone and text surveys to reach voters who cast their ballots by mail.

Check back tonight for live election updates from The Independent when election data is released and final ballots are cast.

Both candidates are seeking 270 electoral votes, the golden number needed to secure entry into the White House.

Thanks to early voting data and exit polls, the media is expected to release information about the results at 5:00 p.m. ET. However, it will still be hours before any meaningful information is available. The first polling stations to close will close their doors at 6:00 p.m. local time, while some polling stations will remain open until 8:00 p.m. local time – including many on the West Coast.

Experts said previously The Independent that the timeline for calling the race depends largely on two things: how close the election is in each state and those states' specific laws regarding vote counting and possible recounts, all of which vary.

Senate and House races

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election this evening.

In the Senate, only 34 out of 100 seats are elected because the term of office for senators is six years and a third is elected every two years.

In particular, the composition of the Senate is at stake. Before this election, Democrats had 47 senators and four allied independents, while Republicans had 49.

Of the 34 seats up for grabs, 18 had previously been occupied by Democratic senators, which posed a threat to their slim majority.

Battle for the swing states

The seven swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin – will be the focus of this election. Together they have 93 electoral votes, without which no candidate can win the election.

Results will be updated live as soon as they are received. Check back for updates.