Apple Stores closing Early and some are boarding up as election results beginning to come out tonight.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-03/polls-open-with-almost-100-million-votes-cast-election-update?srnd=premium&sref=9hGJlFio

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Biden May Not Speak Tonight If Outcome Unclear: Election Update

Polls are open throughout the U.S. for voters who didn’t cast their ballots early or by mail. Misleading robocalls have emerged as one Election Day concern. In addition to choosing between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Americans are casting votes in U.S. House and Senate races and state and local elections.

Biden May Not Speak Tonight If Outcome Unclear

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he might not address supporters on election night if the outcome of the vote remains unclear.

“If there’s something to talk about tonight I’ll talk about it,” Biden said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Wilmington, Delaware. “If not, I’ll wait till the votes are counted the next day.”

Biden spent much of Election Day campaigning in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground that could hold the key to a close election and where there are questions about how long it will take to process an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots. -- Jennifer Epstein

Armed Man Arrested Outside North Carolina Polling Place (4:51 p.m.)

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, arrested an armed man for trespassing outside the polling place for the largest precinct in Mecklenburg County following complaints about his presence.

The man had voted earlier Tuesday, then lingered outside carrying a legally unconcealed firearm, according to police, who ordered him to leave and banned him from coming back. He was arrested after returning two hours later.

Local news reports said a number of politicians, including Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and U.S. Representative Alma Adams were at the precinct when the man, 36-year-old Justin Dunn, was arrested.

The Charlotte Agenda, an online news outlet, posted a photograph it said was of Dunn wearing military gear and combat boots with a holstered pistol on his hip. -- Margaret Newkirk

NYPD to Violent Protesters: ‘Don’t Even Try It’ (4:35 p.m.)

The New York Police Department will deploy thousands of officers on street patrol and rapid response teams beginning Tuesday night to dissuade violence, said Chief of Department Terence Monahan.

“Don’t even try it. We know who you are and you will be arrested,” Monahan said during a news conference outside police headquarters. “We’re going to be out there in force with thousands of police officers in the next couple of days, making sure the city is safe.”

Monahan spoke as merchants boarded up shops along Park Place around the corner from City Hall. Luxury stores lining Madison and Fifth avenues have plywood over windows and doors. The chief said he understood why property owners would seek such fortifications after demonstrations in May and June set off by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd caused widespread damage.

He advised peaceful demonstrators to separate themselves from law violators. “Don’t let them steal your message,” he said.

Monahan said police “have not got any information from anyone who is looking to cause any problems.” Yet the possibility of an uncertain election result will require the police to remain on alert for several days, he said. Trump Tower will be guarded by its usual details of police and U.S. Secret Service agents, which could be augmented at a moment’s notice, he said. -- Henry Goldman

Arizona Officers Find Stolen Ballots Under a Rock (4:35 p.m.)

Arizona law enforcement officers returned stolen mail-in ballots to voters in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, over the weekend, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Tuesday.

Someone alerted local police when they found 18 unopened mail-in ballots under a rock on the side of a road, according to a news release. The ballots were stolen from mailboxes, and the envelopes were still sealed, the release said.

Agents returned the ballots to the voters by hand, according to Brnovich’s office. The motive is unknown and the investigation is ongoing. -- Brenna Goth

Same-Day Registration Adds 12,500 Voters in Michigan (4:27 p.m.)

Michigan had added more than 12,500 voters to its rolls as of Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a state law that allows people to register on Election Day, according to the office of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

Michigan is one of 21 states, including Wisconsin, California and Minnesota, plus the District of Columbia, that allow voters to register on the day of an election.

Also, more than 92% of the absentee ballots requested have been submitted, according to Benson’s office.

Trump won Michigan by 0.21% in 2016, or about 10,700 votes, the narrowest margin of that election. But polls have consistently shown Biden with a lead of at least seven percentage points. -- Laura Davison

Voting Hours Extended at Two Polling Places Near Atlanta (3:34 p.m.)

In Georgia’s DeKalb County, a judge signed an order extending voting hours at two polling locations that opened late Tuesday morning, according to the local ABC affiliate.

Polls in the state were scheduled to open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. One DeKalb location has been extended to 7:40 pm, the other to 7:45 pm.

DeKalb includes about 10% of the city of Atlanta and its eastern suburbs. It is one of the most racially diverse counties in Georgia,. About 54.8% of the population is Black, according to Census data. -- Brett Pulley and Laura Davison

Instagram’s Cached Notice May Stir Confusion (3:20 p.m.)

Facebook Inc.’s Instagram said some users may still be seeing a notice saying Election Day is tomorrow, not today.

The company said it’s a technical issue having to do with caching, or retaining stored data.

“While we turned off the ‘Tomorrow is Election Day’ notice last night, it was cached for a small group of people if their app hadn’t been restarted. It’s resolving itself as people restart,” Instagram said in a statement. “Today, people will get ‘It’s the Last Day to Vote’ at the top of feed.” -- Sarah Frier

Wisconsin Official Reports Smooth Operations (3:20 p.m.)

Wisconsin, one of the three traditionally Democratic Great Lakes states that Trump flipped in 2016 to win the White House, is seeing orderly voting on Tuesday, according to state Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.

Kenosha, Wisconsin, saw protests during the unrest that roiled many U.S. cities last summer, following the police shooting of a Black man and the later killing of two protesters in August.

While some polling locations have reported longer lines, some of that may be due to poll workers trying to foster social distancing, Wolfe told reporters on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. Overall, lines are shorter this year due to the surge in absentee voting, she said. As of Tuesday morning, about 2.1 million absentee ballots had been reported issued to Wisconsin voters, according to the commission. That’s more than two-thirds the total of all votes cast in the 2016 presidential election in the state, according to the commission. -- Amanda Albright

Florida County Moves Polling Place Over Covid (2:59 p.m.)

Florida’s Indian River County scrambled to move voting equipment early Tuesday after an American Legion Hall that officials had planned to use as a polling place reported that a member had tested positive for Covid-19.

“So we weren’t going to be able to use the facility for the election,” Indian River County Supervisor of Elections Leslie Rossway Swan told WPEC-TV. “We had to kick into high gear.”

Swan’s staffed printed flyers with a new polling location to give to voters, and made arrangements to move all the voting equipment before dawn. -- Jennifer Kay

Lines Form Around the U.S. in Heavy Turnout (2:59 p.m.)

Voters around the country are queuing up to cast ballots in an election that has already broken turnout records in many states.

Door-to-Door Canvassing Strong in Nevada, Union Says (2:40 p.m.)

Door-to-door canvassing by labor groups in Nevada, traditionally an Election Day strength for Democrats, faced a dual threat from the pandemic. It made some people wary of face-to-face interactions, and the economic crash it caused hit the state’s unionized hospitality workers particularly hard.

But one powerful union says its operation was stronger this year, not weaker.

Over the last several months, 500 canvassers from Nevada’s UNITE HERE Local 226, the Culinary Workers Union, have knocked on about 470,000 doors — at least 100,000 more than during the 2016 election, when 300 canvassers handled the load, according to Bethany Khan, the union’s director of communications.

“And we have another nine hours left,” Khan said Tuesday morning.

Canvassers were also focused on signature curing, or helping voters correct mailed-in ballots that were filled out incorrectly. -- Sarah Holder and Laura Bliss

Houston Area Turnout Tops 60% With Hours to Go (2:27 p.m.)

Voter turnout in Harris County, Texas, has surpassed 60% with almost six hours to go before polls close in the nation’s third-largest county.

Since polls opened in Houston and its suburbs on Tuesday, 107,000 people have cast votes, pushing the cumulative total to 1.54 million, or 62% of those registered, according to the Harris County Clerk’s Office. In 2016, 63.5% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s data.

The largest county in Texas, Harris leans Democratic. In 2018, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke swamped the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz, there while still losing statewide, and voters who elected the straight-ticket option for Democrats outnumbered those who did for Republicans, 55% to 44%.

Elsewhere in Texas, election and public-health officials in places such as El Paso and Amarillo are dealing with resurgent Covid-19 outbreaks that are complicating voting procedures. In addition, El Paso police began erecting barricades around substations in anticipation of civil unrest, according to El Paso Matters, a nonprofit news website. -- Rachel Adams-Heard

North Carolina Extends Voting Times at Four Sites (2:10 p.m.)

Results from North Carolina will come in 45 minutes later than planned.

The State Board of Elections has extended voting times to as late as 8:15 p.m. at four sites – one in Cabarrus County, one in Guilford County and two in Sampson County -- after there were delays in opening them Tuesday morning. The board won’t release any voting results until all 2,663 polling places around the state have closed.

About 4.6 million people, or 62% of the state’s registered voters, submitted ballots before Election Day. Those votes have been tabulated and will be released as soon as the last polling place closes.

The state Board of Elections says it expects about 1 million people to vote in person today.

Absent the handful of late poll openings, voting in North Carolina has gone relatively smoothly. “The extension of hours is not unusual in any election,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the State Board of Elections’ executive director. -- Andrew Ballard

FBI Investigating Robocalls Telling Voters to Stay Home (1:57 p.m.)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into reports of misleading robocalls telling voters to stay home because of long lines at the polls, according to officials familiar with the situation.

Residents of Flint, Michigan, have reported getting calls saying they should vote on Wednesday instead. Voters in Dearborn, Michigan, have said they received text messages with misleading information as well.

The calls are a voter intimidation and suppression issue, the officials said. There have been some technical glitches in Ohio, Texas and Nevada, but local election officials have been able to resolve those problems quickly, the officials said. -- Alyza Sebenius

Trump Predicts ‘Great Night’ to Campaign Staff (1:34 p.m.)

President Donald Trump said he’s not yet considering either a victory or a concession speech during an afternoon visit to his campaign headquarters, but predicted “some tremendous results” and a “great night” for his re-election bid.

“You never know,” Trump said, while contending that toss-up states including Texas and Arizona were “looking really very strong.”

“Winning is easy,” he added. “Losing is never easy - not for me, it’s not.”

Trump visits the RNC Annex in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 3.

Photographer: Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg

The president said his voice was hoarse from a whirlwind push that saw him hold five campaign rallies Sunday, and he identified Florida and Pennsylvania as the most crucial states as voters cast their ballots. He said he believed his campaign had preformed well with seniors, Blacks, and Latinos, and credited his performance in the second debate -- along with his rally schedule -- for improving his standing in the polls.

Trump also said it was possible Americans would know the results of the election Tuesday night, despite worry that the sizable early and mail-in vote due to the coronavirus pandemic could delay the reporting of results.

“I think you’ll know possibly tonight depending on the extent of victory,” he said. -- Justin Sink and Clare Roth

Kamala Harris’s Husband Rallies Supporters in Ohio (1:26 p.m.)

“We are a nation in pain,” Douglas Emhoff, husband of Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, told supporters at a noon rally in Columbus, Ohio.

He also had a message for Trump.

“Don’t mess with the mail, don’t mess with your vote and don’t talk about staying in office when you get voted out,” Emhoff told a socially distanced crowd of about 50 gathered in the beer garden of Land Grant, a popular Columbus microbrewery. “People are sick and tired of it.”

Emhoff, an attorney, is a partner at DLA Piper LLP. He and Harris were married in 2014.

Douglas Emhoff and Kamala Harris

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

Trump has generally led in polling in Ohio, and the RealClearPolitics.com average shows him up 1.4%. The president’s winning margin in 2016 was eight points.

In-person voting got off to a rough start in Columbus when Franklin County had to resort to paper voting logs. The county, home to Columbus, made the switch at 5:30 a.m. after election officials couldn’t determine that electronic poll books, used to make sure nobody votes more than once, were properly uploading, Franklin County Board of Elections spokesman Aaron Sellers said. -- Alex Ebert

In Trump Coal Country, Economy Isn’t Only Worry (12:51 p.m.)

Long lines snaked out of several voting places in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, one of the areas that delivered Trump victory in 2016 and could be critical to his winning (or losing) this year.

Roughly two-thirds of Westmoreland voted for Trump in 2016, as did pretty much all of southwest Pennsylvania, save for Pittsburgh. For most of the 20th century the county was solidly for Democrats, fueled by a once-strong labor union machine of coal miners and coke processors. Westmoreland first voted for a Republican presidential ticket in 2000 and hasn’t changed course since.

For some voters, the economy wasn’t top of mind.

“The biggest thing for me is I have eight children, so I don’t kill babies,” said Sonya Carren, 50, who chose to vote in person (for Trump) because she feared a ballot sent by mail would get lost.

“I’m pro-life,” she said. “I just can’t vote for anything or anyone who doesn’t support that.”

Korey Thornton, 36, a barber from Greensburg, said his vote for Biden was a response to the “hate and bigotry” he saw in the Trump administration. -- Brentin Mock

Iowa National Guard Prepared for Any Violence in Midwest (12:29 p.m.)

The Iowa National Guard has been asked to prepare to be called to any possible violence this week in three Midwestern states, according to officials familiar with the situation.

Iowa National Guard infantry and military police units have been instructed to prepare to respond to unrest this week in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the officials said.

National guard soldiers and airmen are also scattered in states, including Wisconsin, Nebraska and Tennessee, in plain clothes to support polling places while surveying for hints of civil unrest. However, in most regions those guardsmen will be acting as poll workers and will not be armed. -- Jennifer Jacobs and Kartikay Mehrotra

Whitmer Warns Residents About Misleading Robocalls (12:09 p.m.)

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer tweeted about reports that residents in Flint are receiving robocalls spreading misinformation about voting.

“We received reports that an unknown party is purposefully spreading misinformation via robocalls in Flint in an attempt to confuse voters,” Whitmer said. “Let me be clear -- if you plan to vote in-person, you must do so, or be in line to do so, by 8PM today.”

An unknown robocaller has placed calls to millions of Americans in recent weeks warning them to “stay safe and say home,” according to the Washington Post.

Whitmer said lines across the state are “minimal and moving quickly” and that government officials will “work quickly to stamp out misinformation trying to prevent Michiganders from voting.” -- William Turton

Columbus-Area Polling Sites Face Longer Wait Times (11:14 a.m.)

All 324 Franklin County polling locations in presidential battleground Ohio are facing longer wait times today because the county had to drop its online poll books and resort to paper files.

The county, home to Columbus, made the switch at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday after election officials couldn’t determine that the electronic poll books were properly uploading, Franklin County Board of Elections spokesman Aaron Sellers said.

Voters after dawn at a polling station in Columbus, Ohio on Nov. 3.

Photographer: Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images

Recent polls have put Trump and Biden in a dead-heat in bellwether Ohio. But a Biden victory likely would require big Democratic voter turnout in deep blue Columbus, the nation’s fourteenth largest city.

If poll books don’t align with votes that could also affect recount, with the misaligned precincts not being included in a re-tally. Sellers said there is no indication the paper poll books have created any documentation issues thus far. -- Alex Ebert

USPS Finds Ballot Delays in Battleground States (10:58 a.m.)

The U.S. Postal Service reported delays in delivering ballots to election officials in three closely divided states that could swing the U.S. election: Michigan, where ballots must arrive today to be counted, and in parts of Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The cohort of ballots in transit remains large. In Pennsylvania, about 683,000 ballots had been requested by voters and not yet returned to election officials as of Nov. 2, and in Michigan the corresponding figure was about 476,000, according to the U.S. Elections Project that tracks early voting. In Pennsylvania and North Carolina, ballots can be accepted in coming days if they are postmarked by Election Day.

Workers were sick from Covid-19 in Michigan and central Pennsylvania, the Postal Service said in an explanation of slow ballot delivery demanded by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington D.C.

On Oct. 31 in both the Detroit and Philadelphia areas, about 78% of ballots sent by voters reached election authorities within the service’s guideline of 1-to-3 days for delivery, the service told Sullivan in a Nov. 2 filing. Other areas with on-time delivery less than 80% that date included central Pennsylvania and Greensboro, North Carolina, according to the USPS data filed with the court.

Daily figures may not be reliable, and the service scores don’t include ballots that are handled locally without being shipped to large processing centers, which are delivered the same day with a near 100% success rate, the USPS said in the filing. It said “extraordinary measures” are in place to deliver ballots. -- Todd Shields

First Lady Casts Ballot, Sans Mask, in Florida (10:43 a.m.)

First Lady Melania Trump visited a Palm Beach polling station Tuesday morning to cast her ballot in the way her husband has urged his supporters to: in person.

Melania Trump leaves after casting her vote at a polling center in Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 3.

Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

She was the only person not wearing a mask at the polling center. She waved and smiled to reporters. When asked why she didn’t vote with the president last week, Trump said she’d wanted to vote on Election Day. -- Kathleen Hunter

Biden Says Middle Class Built U.S., Not Wall Street (9:50 a.m.)

Biden returned to his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday morning and made another appeal to working-class voters.

Speaking to a group of canvassers, Biden said he wants to restore “basic decency and honor” and unite a country he said has fractured under the Trump administration.

“The middle class built this country. Wall Street didn’t build it,” he said, speaking through a mask and using a bullhorn.

Biden also explained that he calls Scranton, where he lived until he was in the fourth grade, home because it’s “where I learned all my basic values.” He said that “money does not determine your wealth,” that it’s a basic responsibility to “look out for the other guy,” and that “a job is about a lot more than a paycheck.” -- Elizabeth Wasserman

DHS Says No Sign Foreign Meddling Is Successful (8:59)

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said there’s “no indication” foreign actors have successfully meddled in the 2020 election.

Wolf, a Trump appointee, told reporters in a briefing Tuesday morning that officials remained on “high alert” for interference by foreign actors, including Russia, China and Iran.

“We have no indication that a foreign actor has succeeded in compromising or
affecting the actual votes cast in this election but we do remain on high alert,” Wolf said.

The federal government is “utilizing all the tools we have available to make sure that Americans can cast their ballots and know that they will count,” he said.

Trump has repeatedly challenged the U.S. intelligence community’s finding that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election in his favor.

DHS estimates that 105 million Americans have already voted and expect the total number of voters this election to reach 150 million. -- Alyza Sebenius

Biden Plans Remarks If Media Calls Race, Axios Says (8:36 a.m.)

Biden plans to address the nation as its president-elect if news organizations declare that he has secured enough electoral college votes to win, Axios reported Tuesday, citing Biden campaign advisers.

Biden plans to make remarks even if Trump is challenging the results in court, according to Axios, which said Biden could also begin quickly naming members of his transition team. -- Kate Hunter

Trump Says He’ll Declare ‘When There’s Victory’ (8:11 a.m.)

Trump started his morning activities calling into the “Fox & Friends” program and was asked about Democratic concerns that he may declare victory prematurely before mail-in votes are counted in key states.

“At what point will you declare victory,” one of the hosts, Steve Doocy, asked.

“When there’s victory,” Trump replied. “I think we’ll have victory. But only when there’s victory. I mean, there’s no reason to play games. I look at it as being a very solid chance of winning here.” -- Saleha Mohsin and Emma Kinery

Biden Starts Day With Mass at Local Church (7:32 a.m.)

The Democratic challenger started his day with an Election Day mass near his Delaware home.

Joined by wife Jill Biden and two granddaughters, the visit to St. Joseph on the Brandywine was the first stop of a day that also includes a few final events in the key battleground of Pennsylvania.

Biden’s son Beau, who passed away in 2015, is buried in the church’s cemetery. After leaving church, the Bidens walked to Beau’s gravesite.

Biden is slated to travel to his childhood hometown of Scranton and then to Philadelphia before returning home to await election results. -- Jennifer Epstein

Polls Open With Nearly 100 Million Votes Cast (6 a.m.)

Polls are scheduled to open at 6 a.m. in seven U.S. states, the beginning of an Election Day that many expect to come and go without a declared winner because of millions of as-yet uncounted ballots that were cast in early voting.

Heavy turnout is expected in many areas, even though by early Tuesday morning, about 99 million ballots – roughly 72% of the total in 2016 -- had already been cast as early votes or mail-in or absentee ballots.

WATCH: More than two-thirds of the total votes in 2016 have already been cast in the 2020 election.

Voter surveys have been relatively lopsided in the handful of states that are opening polls earliest this morning: Trump has led convincingly in Indiana and Kentucky, while Biden has led in Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

Over the next hour, a number of states where the race is tighter are scheduled to open their polls – including North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. -- John Voskuhl

Five Votes for Biden in New Hampshire (12:15 a.m.)

Voting and the counting of ballots got underway just after midnight Tuesday in the tiny community of Dixville Notch in northern New Hampshire near the Canadian border. Biden received five votes to none for Trump. The entire proceeding, broadcast live by WMUR-TV, took just a few minutes.

The results, while followed by political observers every four years, do not indicate, let alone foretell, anything about the election’s outcome. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received four votes in Dixville Notch, Trump two; Gary Johnson, an independent candidate, one. And someone wrote in the name of Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012. -- John Harney

— With assistance by Ryan Teague Beckwith, Brentin Mock, Christopher Yasiejko, Amanda Albright, David Welch, Jeff Green, Gabrielle Coppola, Jennifer Kay, Michael Smith, Andrew Ballard, Brenna Goth, Margaret Newkirk, Michael Sasso, Alexander Ebert, Elise Young, Chris Dolmetsch, Michelle Fay Cortez, David Wethe, Laura Bliss, Sarah Holder, Shruti Singh, Keith Laing, John Harney, Jennifer Epstein, Alyza Sebenius, and William Turton

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