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In the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, a line began to form outside the polling station before dawn.
Voters who had crawled out of bed to cast their ballot waited in the cold for the doors to open at 7 a.m.
But American voters are encouraged and willing to make their views known.
Nearly 100 million voters have already cast their votes before today, a record for early voting in the United States.
Live updates of the US elections
While this is perhaps to be expected amid a pandemic with an increase in the number of people voting by mail, there is a sense that Americans are more engaged than ever in the country’s increasingly polarized politics.
People are overcoming the challenges of the pandemic and long lines at polling stations to exercise their democratic right, and the country is on track to surpass 150 million votes for the first time in history.
Pennsylvania has been bombarded by both candidates during this campaign, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden visiting the state to the end.
The state of the rust belt was key to Trump’s victory in 2016 and is widely seen as the razor’s edge of this election.
Whichever path Pennsylvania takes, the country is likely to fall too.
While Biden has a clear advantage in the polls nationwide, it has become an increasingly tight race in Pennsylvania in recent weeks.
Trump took over the state by fewer than 45,000 votes in 2016. Analysts say a simple gust of wind could blow Pennsylvania away.
About a third of the people in Pennsylvania have voted early, fewer than in the other Rust Belt states, and the majority of voters must cast their ballot on Election Day.
While early voting favors Democrats, today’s vote favors Trump.
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State polls will have staggered closing times due to different time zones, but the outcome for Pennsylvania may not be known for days.
While the state’s largest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, aim to count mail-in votes on Election Night, many suburbs and rural areas will count through Wednesday, if not beyond.
This is expected to create some anxiety on election night.
Trump has repeatedly demanded that the candidate who leads on election night be named the winner.
But not all votes will be counted at this point.
On that day, votes are counted before postal ballots, and Trump has tried to discredit voting by mail throughout this campaign.
Calling the result early might show an incorrect result, but the president is well aware that it would likely work in his favor.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that mail-in votes can be counted in Pennsylvania for up to three days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked Nov. 3.
In a tweet that was marked with a warning on Twitter on the eve of the election, Trump wrote: “The Supreme Court’s decision to vote in Pennsylvania is VERY dangerous.
“It will allow rampant and uncontrolled deception and undermine our entire system of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”
Local election officials are prepared for potential legal challenges in this highly contested state that the election could decide.
Mail-in ballots that arrive in the window between Election Day and the deadline will be separated in anticipation of a legal dispute.
This is not the first time that the outcome of a presidential election can be decided in court, after the Florida vote was resolved in favor of George Bush in 2000.
Unlike that election, Trump is selling the suggestion of street violence, rather than stifling the baffling idea of unrest.
Counting has always taken place after Election Day.
Some of the states that favored Trump in 2016 were called up in the following days.
Amid the unprecedented electoral climate of a pandemic, patience and calm are necessary. The president shows no signs of either.
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