Join Us *HERE* on Election Day for Live Updates on Local and Presidential Races

Election Day has arrived and BK Reader will be here to keep you up-to-date with the results as they come in.

Between noon and 10:00pm we will be sharing live updates across our website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, keeping you abreast with the numbers as they roll in across the city and country in one our most pivotal elections in recent history.

---

10:00pm

Local Elections

As expected, New York has voted overwhelmingly for Biden, with the Democratic candidate receiving 74.2% of the votes of the 18% of votes counted so far. New York gives Biden 29 electoral seats.

Polls have closed in New York after record voter turnout in this year's general election. The most hotly contested seats could still take days to weeks to be called. The BOE said 2,346,302 New York City residents have voted today and during the 9 days of early voting.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said if there was a prolonged count in the country the city was ready for tensions to rise, Gothamist reported. The NYPD has confirmed it has a contingency plan that would reduce foot traffic in Manhattan. A number of storefronts have been boarded up in the city in the case of civil unrest.

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was at P.S. 269 in East Flatbush and said: "I leave it up to the most high now. We put the work in. No matter what happens we've got work to do tomorrow. People are anxious people are tense, but we're going to get through this together."

Presidential Election

It is still too early to call crucial battleground states, but things are looking good for Joe Biden in Ohio and North Carolina, which would be a huge upset to Trump. Trump looks set to win in Florida, Virginia, Georgia and Michigan — although there are still a number of votes to be counted.

A big takeaway from the night is the huge increase in voter turnout across the country in what is a referendum on President Trump's polarizing four years in office.

Pennsylvania, another key state in the election, is seeing results trickle in and things are looking hopeful for Biden, although again, it is too early to jump to any conclusions. Registered Democrats cast over one million more early votes than Republicans in the state, NBC reports.

The New York Times has Biden with 131 electoral seats and Trump with 98. 270 electoral college votes are needed to win the presidency.

8:00pm

Local Elections

New Yorkers have just one hour left to get in line to vote. With so many mail-in votes cast in the election, it is unlikely we will have results in local or presidential elections tonight -- but we will keep you updated with what we know as the polls close at 9:00pm.

Presidential Election

CNN has projected Trump won Indiana with 66.4% of the vote giving him 11 electoral seats, even though only 12% of the votes have been counted. The network has declared Biden the winner of Vermont, with 5% of votes counted and 62.5% going to Biden.

The New York Times has not declared a projected winner for Indiana, but declared Trump the projected winner of Kentucky with 60.2% of the vote, which would give him another 8 electoral seats.

Associated Press has said Trump has won West Virginia and Biden has won Vermont, even though no votes have been counted, meaning AP is using polls and other data. AP has declared Biden the winner of Virginia.

Florida is being hotly contested with Biden and Trump neck in neck with the 75% of votes counted. At the time of publication, Biden has 49.9% of the vote and Trump has 49.1%. If Biden takes Florida, Georgia or North Carolina, he has a strong chance of being the next president of the United States.

6:00pm

Local Elections

New Yorkers have just 3 hours left to get in line to vote. With so many mail-in votes cast in the election, it is unlikely we will have results in local or presidential elections tonight -- but we will keep you updated with what we know as the polls close at 9:00pm.

If you vote today, make sure to say thank you to the poll workers. They are unsung heroes who are critical to ensuring our democracy functions.

Presidential Election

Results will start coming in just after 6:00pm and by 7.30pm, polls in important swing states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio will close.

Exit polls are coming in, and although they are less representative than usual this year given the number of people not voting at the polls today, they still give an idea of what is motivating voters across the country.

CNN reports 52% of voters want the government to focus on containing the coronavirus pandemic while 42% want rebuilding the economy to take first place, and the top issues being voted on are the economy, racial inequality, coronavirus, crime and safety and health care policy.

As the U.S. nears the conclusion of Election Day, upwards of 100.7 million voters have cast early or absentee ballots this cycle, according to data from the NBC News Decision Desk/TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm. That means that in just early voting, turnout has reached nearly 75 percent of what it was in all of 2016, when about 136.5 million ballots were cast.

Registered Democrats are leading registered Republicans in the early vote in critical states like Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania while Republicans are up in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. Much of the swing state-level polling shows independents breaking toward Biden. If Biden wins Florida, Georgia or North Carolina, he will be the favorite to win the presidency.

Sen. Kamala Harris told Michigan voters, "We have in our hands the power and the choice to elect a president who will lead with a sense of compassion and care in Joe Biden."

4:00pm

Local Elections:

There have been a couple of voting issues reported in Brooklyn, including  at P.S. 11 in Clinton Hill where voters were slowed down by an iPad glitch and at P.S. 29 in Cobble Hill and J.H.S 220 in Sunset Park where a station coordinator showed up late and the other did not show up at all. Voting is now taking place smoothly at all three sites.

Polling stations in New York City will be open until 9:00pm tonight, but it is predicted to take at least a few days until all votes are counted and the final results are in for the local and presidential results. 

Robocalls are being reported in New York and other states telling voters to "stay safe and stay home." Election officials are telling voters to ignore the calls, which are being investigated.

Presidential Elections:

Joe Biden, flanked by his granddaughters, told crowds in Philadelphia he was expecting 150 million voters to vote in this election, "we're going to have more people vote this year than anytime in American history."

"The president has a lot of things backwards, one being he gets to decide who can vote, but the people will decide who can be president," Biden told a supportive crowd, adding he would be a uniting president for the whole country. "We choose hope over fear, truth over lies, science over fiction."

Voters continue to show up in record numbers across the country. In North Carolina, an important swing state, the polls will be open for an extra 45 minutes due to a technical glitch. The first polls will start closing in 3 hours.

2:00pm:

Local Elections:

In Brooklyn, 30% of registered voters chose to vote early -- meaning there are still 850,570 Brooklynites still to vote or who voted by mail. Voters are reporting shorter lines at polling sites across Brooklyn after record early voter turnout, but across the country many are still having to wait, sometimes in snow, to cast their ballots.

Although a number of businesses have boarded up storefronts in New York and across the country, so far there has been no major drama reported. Although, outside MS88 in South Slope a man waving a Trump flag harassed voters before leaving after talking with police. The city has enlisted 500 volunteers to observe the election and make sure there is no voter intimidation. 

Presidential Election:

At RNC offices in Virginia Trump told reporters: "The lines have been amazing. I think we're gonna have a great night and much more importantly we're going to have a great four years," adding he had not planned a concession speech saying losing was not easy for him and that Americans were entitled to know the outcome of the election tonight.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden tweeted this morning that we were in the battle for the soul of our nation, and asked Americans to put trust in him and Sen. Kamala Harris "to take our democracy back."

Check out our story on the top things to do while waiting in line.

12:00pm:

The increase in mail voting because of the pandemic is expected to delay the full results, so many races will be called late on election night.

In New York, only unofficial results from in-person early and Election Day voting will be released on election night. Absentee ballots will be reported in the following days and weeks, depending on the county.

Keep in mind that in NY, it took weeks to finish counting ballots for the June primary.

Voters can track their ballots by clicking here: https://nycabsentee.com/tracking

---

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Already there have been more than 90 million votes cast countrywide in an election that is expected to attract record turnout, and which is taking place during a global pandemic, economic crisis, nationwide protests against racial injustice and increasingly public white nationalism.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden is polling above President Donald Trump in four key swing states, but following the 2016 Election upset there is a reluctance to look too closely at the polls. 

The expansion of mail-in voting due to the pandemic has meant a number of ballots will not be counted until days after Election Day, meaning it is highly unlikely we will wake up knowing the results Wednesday morning. Trump has already said he will be contesting the results in Philadelphia as soon as polls close.

BROOKLYN LOCAL ELECTIONS

In New York City, more than 1.1 million people voted during the early voting period, anxious to be heard in an extremely fractious, tense and divisive election. Those who have waited to vote in person on Election Day will be able to do so between 6:00am and 9:00pm.

U.S. Congressional Races:

---

To find your polling site, click here.

Absentee ballots must also be postmarked by Tuesday Nov. 3 and can be dropped at polling sites before they close at 9 p.m.

In Brooklyn, voters are not only voting for the country's next president, but for local representation in the U.S. Congress, NY State Senate and NY Assembly.

*BK Reader will be covering all local races, as well as the presidential race.