Staying up? Here’s all you need to know about election night

After all the drama of a campaign like no other, US election day is here. It’s been an ultra-close race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and more twists and turns are guaranteed after polls close on 5 November.

So settle in, and buckle up. Our election night guide includes the key things to watch out for as we wait to get a result – however long that wait proves to be. Timings below are given in GMT first and then in US Eastern time (EST).

After months of second-guessing what the American public will decide, at 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) we got an early glimpse into their thoughts and motivations, with early exit poll data suggesting democracy and the economy are the most important issues for voters.

American exit polls work differently to those in the UK. Rather than predicting the result, they give an insight into people’s priorities and opinions  – and later, into how different demographic groups voted. Pollsters combine election day interviews with telephone polling both nationally and in the seven swing states.

Throughout the night, expect experts to talk a lot about these states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In most states the outcome of the presidential vote is all but certain but voting in swing states is hard to predict and can lean Republican (red) or Democrat (blue). Both campaigns have been heavily targeting voters in these battleground areas that could hold the keys to the White House.

By 00:00 GMT (19:00 EST), polls will be closing in Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia, but these are not swing states, so the results will be predictable.

But voting will also close in the first swing state of the night, Georgia. Victory for either candidate could give a strong hint at which way the election could go.

Georgia was only narrowly won by Joe Biden last time. It also became the subject of false claims by Trump, who is accused of criminally conspiring to overturn his 2020 defeat.

The candidate with more votes than any other in Georgia will get 16 crucial votes out of 538 under the electoral college system.

Harris and Trump both want to gain a majority of 270 electoral college votes to win the White House. That matters more than the “popular vote” or the nationwide support they receive.

Soon afterwards, at 00:30 GMT (19:30 EST), polls close in three more states including in North Carolina.

Away from the presidential contest, there’s been huge interest in the state governor contest that pits state Attorney General Josh Stein against Trump-backed candidate Mark Robinson, whose campaign has been hit by scandals.

Polls close at the same time in Ohio, where Trump’s running mate JD Vance is a senator. Meanwhile, the two campaigns will be gathering at their headquarters for the evening – which we know will be in West Palm Beach, Florida, in Trump’s case. Harris is expected to spend some of the night at Howard University in Washington DC, where she was once a student.

At this point, some states might start to be “called” by US media outlets. They use models to project, or call, which way a state has voted, even before the full vote count has been completed.

This happens when they believe a candidate has gained a lead that cannot be beaten by their opponent. In some closely-fought swing states, this could take a long time.

The models the media outlets use draw on a variety of data, such as exit polls and actual votes counted by officials. The BBC gets this data from a firm named Edison Research.

At 01:00 GMT (20:00 EST), more polls close – including in critical Pennsylvania, the biggest prize of the 2024 swing states with 19 electoral votes. This is where Trump survived an attempt on his life when a gunman opened fire at his rally, killing one person.

It’s also a state that’s part of the Rust Belt – areas once dominated by manufacturing that have experienced industrial decline in recent decades. Here, a handful of counties, like Erie and Northampton, could end up making a difference.

Around now, at 01:30 GMT (20:30 EST), we expect to get more exit poll data – including a national breakdown of voting by age, race, and level of college education. This is provisional data that’s refined over a period of weeks.

Polls close at 02:00 GMT (21:00 EST) in more closely-watched battleground states including Michigan and Wisconsin. Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the US, for many of whom the Israel-Gaza war is an important electoral issue. The state was won by Biden last time, as was Wisconsin, which this year hosted the Republican National Convention.

Polls also shut in Arizona – a focal point for the nation’s immigration debate – followed by Nevada, where both parties have tried to appeal to working-class voters by vowing to end taxes on tips, an hour later.

At 04:00 GMT (23:00 EST), polls close across the remaining states that adjoin each other on the US mainland. The last two states close slightly later – Hawaii at 05:00 GMT (00:00 EST) and Alaska at 06:00 GMT on Wednesday (01:00 EST).

Traditionally, it was soon after the close of voting at 23:00 EST in California that the race as a whole was called for one candidate or the other. A concession speech from the losing candidate followed not long later.

But few observers are expecting a speedy resolution this year, with some suggesting it could take days, rather than hours, to know the victor.

In recent elections, an increased number of postal votes has tended to delay the process. Tens of millions of people have also voted early, ahead of polling day. And different states have different rules on when they start tallying them.

Early tallies may also be deceptive. A candidate who takes an early lead through in-person votes may end up being overtaken when postal votes and other types of ballots are added later. This happened in Michigan in 2020. Trump took an early lead through in-person votes but was later overtaken by Biden.

Despite so much focus on the presidency, voters will also be choosing new members of Congress, who pass laws and initiate spending plans. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election. In the Senate, where members vote on key appointments in government, 34 seats are being contested.

Republicans currently control the House, while Democrats have the Senate.

These two chambers can act as a check on White House plans if the controlling party in either chamber disagrees with the president.

Voters in Montana, Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota will also be asked how their state should regulate abortion, which has become one of the election’s most emotive issues.

If you’re still up, well done for making it this far, but there’s a chance we’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out who has won. The tighter the race, the more vote-counting that will need to happen before a winner can be projected in any given place – and there is always the possibility of recounts. The full nationwide count usually takes days or weeks.

To give you a flavour – in 2020, the result in Pennsylvania and Nevada was projected four days after election day, and in Arizona, after more than a week by most outlets.

A very close contest could feel like a repeat of 2020. Or 2024 could be comparable to the 2000 presidential race between George W Bush and Al Gore, which was disputed and ultimately settled in the US Supreme Court, with Bush certified as the winner.

The neck-and-neck vote predicted by the polls and pundits in 2024 could potentially leave the door open to legal challenges by either side.

That would make the night only the beginning of the drama – rather than the final word on the 2024 election.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.