Voting ends in major states on election day

Washington— The results of the United States presidential election day will depend on seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have visited more frequently. Together, these states would potentially provide the winning candidate with the Electoral College votes needed to achieve a majority of 270.

It will be a game of adjusting to the predominant time in each state, which is spread across four different time zones.

A look at Election Day timelines across all seven, with all times in Eastern Standard Time:

Arizona

Voting began at 8:00 a.m. in Arizona, a state that Joe Biden won by 0.3% in 2020. He was only the second Democratic presidential candidate to do so in nearly 70 years. Voting will close at 9:00 pm.

Arizona does not release votes until reports are received from all precincts or one hour after all polls close, whichever occurs first.

In 2020, the Associated Press first reported the Arizona results at 10:02 pm ET on Election Day, November 3, and declared Biden the winner at 2:51 am on November 4.

Georgia

Voting began at 7 am in Georgia, which played a key role in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat in the presidential race to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992, defeating Trump by less than a quarter percent of the vote, a margin of 11,779 votes.

Trump’s efforts to overturn those results have since been at the center of a criminal case in Fulton County. He remains on hold while his legal team pursues a pre-trial appeal to remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the case and dismiss the indictment. The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear those arguments after the election.

Voting in Georgia will close at 7:00 p.m.

In 2020, the AP first published Georgia results at 7:20 pm on November 3 and declared Biden the winner of the state at 7:58 pm on November 19, more than two weeks after Election Day.

michigan

Voting began at 7 a.m. in Michigan, one of the “blue wall” states that swung closely for Trump in 2016 after nearly 30 years of voting for Democratic candidates. Four years later, Biden withdrew it. His margin was about 154,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast.

Michigan straddles two time zones, but polls close at 8:00 pm in most of the state and at 9:00 pm in the rest.

In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 pm on November 3 and declared Biden the winner on November 4 at 5:58 pm.

Snow

Voting began at 10:00 a.m. in Nevada, the smallest award of electoral votes in the battleground state. But his record as a presidential indicator is one of the best. The candidate who wins Nevada has won the White House in 27 of the last 30 presidential elections.

Voting will close at 10 pm. The state doesn’t release results until the last person in line has voted, so there’s usually a wait between polls closing and the first results coming in.

In 2020, the AP first published Nevada results at 11:41 pm on November 3 and declared Biden the winner at 12:13 pm on November 7.

North Carolina

Voting began at 6:30 a.m. in North Carolina, where Democrats have won presidential elections only twice since 1968. But the state remains competitive for both the major parties. Trump’s 2020 victory in North Carolina, by about 1 percentage point, was his smallest margin of victory in any state.

Voting closed at 7:30 pm.

In 2020, the AP first published the results on November 3 at 7:42 pm and declared Trump the winner on November 13 at 3:49 pm.

pennsylvania

Voting in Pennsylvania, another “blue wall” state, will begin at 7:00 am. Biden’s margin in Pennsylvania in 2020 was about 8,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million cast. This year, it was here that Harris and Trump first met in their only debate in September in Philadelphia.

Polls in the state, which has 19 more electoral votes than any other battleground state, will close at 8:00 pm.

In 2020, the AP first reported results at 8:09 pm on November 3 and declared Biden the winner at 11:25 am on November 7.

wisconsin

Voting begins at 8:00 a.m. in Wisconsin, the group’s third “blue wall” state. Poll closures are nothing new in Wisconsin; In 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000, the victory margin in the state was less than 1 percent.

Voting will close at 9 pm.

In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin results at 9:07 pm on November 3 and declared Biden the winner at 2:16 pm on November 4.