Record turnout is expected. Polling stations were opened in U.S. elections, amid warnings of violence



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American voters began casting their vote today, Tuesday, in the presidential election, in which Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, are competing, after they concluded their election campaigns last night inviting citizens to participate in mass elections, which are expected to witness a record turnout.

At 11:00 GMT, polling stations were opened in some eastern states, namely Connecticut (7 constituencies), Indiana (11), Kentucky (8), Maine (4), New Jersey (14), New York (29) and Virginia (13), for a total of 86 polling stations.

Then centers were opened in the states of North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia, and the centers are still opening in the center and west of the country.

Trump has questioned the integrity of election results for months, believing that vote-by-mail is vulnerable to fraud, and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost.

Trump also said that votes should only be counted on election night, and called for the results to be announced immediately, even though many states take days or weeks to count votes.

Americans will also decide today which of the two major political parties will control Congress for the next two years, in light of pressure from Democrats to restore a majority in the Senate and expectations that they will retain control of the House of Representatives. .

وعند Midnight last night, prof.A few voters cast their ballots in Dixville Notch, a small village in the Far East of the United States, in a symbolic start of the elections and in keeping with an ancient tradition that earned the village the title of “the first in the country”.

Violence Warning

In several cities, important buildings have been surrounded with wooden fences in anticipation of possible protests, including the perimeter of the White House and in New York City, and the police have closed Rodeo Drive, which attracts buyers in California.

The FBI has warned of the possibility of gun clashes in Portland, Oregon, in northwestern Oregon as the city, which has become a symbol of deep divisions, prepares for potential unrest.

More than 99 million citizens cast their votes early, either in person or by mail, a record turnout driven by intense interest in the elections and fear of voting in person due to the pandemic. This number represents about 40% of all those legally eligible to vote.

Mass campaigns
The vote culminates in a campaign dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 231,000 lives in the United States, millions of people have lost their jobs and protests nationwide over racism against blacks.

Trump, 74, held 5 election conferences in 4 states yesterday and concluded his campaign in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same city in which he concluded his campaign in 2016, telling his supporters: “Tomorrow we will make history again.”

Trump returned to Washington at 2:35 a.m. EST, and is expected to spend most of the day at the White House, where an election night party was planned for about 400 guests after they were tested for detection of Corona disease.

Biden, 77, is seeking to win the presidency after a political career that spanned 5 decades, including 8 years as former Vice President Barack Obama, interspersed with two attempts to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008.

Biden spent the last day of the campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and is expected to spend Election Day in Scranton, Pennsylvania, his hometown and Philadelphia.

The two candidates focused on about 12 crucial states, almost all of which Trump won in 2016, and the two men also paid close attention to Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the three states that were Democratic, and Trump won by a narrow margin ago. 4 years.

If Biden can keep all the states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and capture Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that would be enough to win.

Results are expected to begin in Florida, where mail-in votes can be counted tonight. But Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin won’t start counting postcards until Election Day, making the vote count more likely to take several days.

The latest Reuters / Ipsos poll showed Biden had a 50% lead to Trump’s 46%, a week after Monday’s draw in an earlier poll.



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