U.S. election day live updates: Voting going mostly smoothly; Bomb threats at Georgia polling stations originated in Russia: official

Police have arrested a man trying to enter the U.S. Capitol with a torch and flare gun

U.S. Capitol Police say the man was stopped Tuesday during a security screening at the Capitol Visitor Center. Authorities say he smelled of fuel and was carrying the flare gun and torch.

Officials have cancelled public tours of the Capitol for the remainder of the day.

Police say they are still investigating.

The arrest comes as authorities are on heightened alert for security issues around the nation’s capital and have increased patrols in areas downtown and near the White House around Election Day. Nearly four years ago, a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

1:30 p.m. Bomb threats at Georgia polling stations from Russia 

Bomb threats that briefly disrupted two polling stations in Georgia originated in Russia, the state’s secretary of state said on Tuesday.

“We’ve heard some threats that were of Russian origin. I don’t know how to describe that that’s viable — we don’t think they are, but in the interest of public safety, we always check that out, and we’ll just continue to be very responsible when we hear about stuff like that,” Georgia Secretary of State George Raffensberger said before the media.

“We identified the source, and it was from Russia.”

Raffensberger also referenced another threat  believed to have been carried out by Russia late last month that targeted Georgia’s online absentee voter portal.

According to the Associated Press, that attack was an apparent attempt to crash the site ahead of the election. The attack was thwarted by state election officials.

“They’re up to mischief, it seems, and they don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election,” Raffensberger continued at Tuesday’s press conference.

1:15 p.m. Election day voting is going mostly smoothly with some scattered issues

Election Day voting unfolded largely smoothly across the nation Tuesday but with scattered reports of extreme weather, ballot printing errors and technical problems causing delays.

Most of the hiccups occurring by midday were “largely expected routine and planned-for events,” said Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in a press briefing. She said the agency was not currently tracking any national, significant incidents impacting election security.

Helping voting run relatively smoothly on Election Day was the fact that tens of millions of Americans had already cast their ballots. Those included record numbers of voters in Georgia, North Carolina and other battleground states that could decide the winner.

12:40 p.m. Trump says he won’t challenge results — as long as it’s ‘fair’ 

Trump is suggesting he won’t challenge the results of the election — as long as it’s fair

“If it’s a fair election, I’d be the first one to acknowledge,” the results, Trump said, though what meets that definition wasn’t clear.

Speaking to reporters after voting in Florida, Trump said that he had no plans to tell his supporters to refrain from violence should he lose.

“I don’t have to tell them,” because they “are not violent people,” he said.

Trump planned to visit a nearby campaign office to thank those working on his behalf.

12:30 p.m. Man arrested in N.Y. town near border after threatening to burn down polling site

The man went to vote in the town of Fowler, N.Y., near the Canadian border at about 6:30 a.m., New York State Police said in a news release.

The man, who had previously been convicted of a felony, was told that he was ineligible to vote because he had not re-registered after being released from prison.

The man became irate and began threatening to return with a gun or to burn the place down, police said.

The man fled but was later picked up by state police and brought to the station for questioning. Charges against him were pending.

12 p.m. NFL, NBA facilities in use on Election Day

There are no NFL or NBA games today. Plenty of fans will be going to stadiums anyway.

At least 17 NFL and NBA facilities are either polling locations or ballot drop-off stations. Some teams even offered voters personalized “I Voted” stickers with team logos.

Tuesdays aren’t game days in the NFL.

11:50 a.m. Florida’s voter information website is experiencing issues

Florida voters turning to a state-run website to check their voter registration status were getting an error message Tuesday morning.

A spokesperson for Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd confirmed the state’s online Voter Information Lookup tool was experiencing technical issues but did not answer questions about what was causing the problem.

“We’re working to resolve it,” spokesperson Mark Ard said. “We’re providing alternative websites and locations for voters to find their voter information, their precinct.”

11:05 a.m. Foreign election interference issues quiet so far

Cait Conley, senior adviser to the director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency, said during a briefing that “we are not currently tracking any national level, significant incidents impacting the security of our election infrastructure. We are tracking instances of extreme weather and other temporary infrastructure disruption to certain areas of the country, but these are largely expected routine and planned for events.”

Conley said CISA, the FBI and intelligence communities did anticipate that foreign actors would try to influence the election later today and in the following weeks.

11 a.m. Opinion: My generation was supposed to put a woman in the White House. We’ve been waiting for Kamala Harris for too long

In all the anxiety about a possible second Donald Trump presidency, it’s easy to forget that America might, in a historic first, elect a woman as president.

My female generation X friends and I cannot forget this dream. We have booked our Washington hotel for the January inauguration weekend. We have waited long enough. We are ready to celebrate.

But first, we need to apologize for the delay.

Read the column from Katharine Lake Berz

10:45 a.m. (updated) FBI ‘aware’ of fake news clip urging people not to vote

In a statement from Tuesday morning, the FBI said it was aware of two fake news clips using its name and insignia to promote false narratives around the election.

The first clip falsely reports the FBI said Americans should “vote remotely” due to a high terror threat at polling stations. Meanwhile, the second clip contains a fabricated FBI press release alleging that the management of five prisons in three swing states — Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona — rigged inmate voting.

Both video clips, the FBI said, are not authentic and their contents are false.

“Attempts to deceive the public with false content about FBI threat assessments and activities aim to undermine our democratic process and erode trust in the electoral system,” the agency wrote.

10 a.m. Democrats hope to flip a reliably Republican Louisiana congressional seat with new boundaries.

In a critical election year, Democrats are looking to flip a once reliably Republican Louisiana congressional seat, where political boundaries were recently redrawn to form the state’s second mostly Black congressional district.

With five people on the ballot for Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District, Democrats have thrown their support behind longtime politician Cleo Fields, 61. The state senator has been involved in state politics for three decades and served two terms in Congress after being elected in 1992.

9:30 a.m. Voters are gearing up to head to the polls to cast their ballots for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in one of the nation’s most historic presidential races. They’ll also be determining which party will control the House and Senate.

Read AP’s live rolling coverage

9:17 a.m. Which celebrities have endorsed Trump or Harris?

Joe Rogan has endorsed Donald Trump in today’s U.S. election. The podcaster — who has hosted both Trump and his running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, this election cycle on his widely-listened “The Joe Rogan Experience” — voiced his support for the Republican nominee on X late Monday night, writing that he believed Elon Musk had made the “most compelling case for Trump.”

“I agree with (Musk) every step of the way,” Rogan wrote. 

Musk, for his part, has been a vocal supporter of the former president throughout the campaign, from attending multiple campaign events to offering $1 million to people who go out and vote for Trump. 

Read the full story from the Star’s Nathan Bawaan

9:15 a.m. A Republican lawyer who interned in the White House under Donald Trump is challenging Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought charges against the former president over efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Courtney Kramer worked in the White House counsel’s office during the Trump presidency and is active in GOP organizations. She’s the first Republican to run for district attorney in Fulton County since 2000.

Fulton County, which is home to 11 per cent of the state’s electorate and includes most of the city of Atlanta, is a Democratic stronghold.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

9 a.m. Polls open across the U.S.

Polls opened across the nation Tuesday morning as voters faced a stark choice between two candidates who have offered drastically different temperaments and visions for the world’s largest economy and dominant military power. Millions of Americans had already cast their ballots, voting by mail and early in-person voting.

8:50 a.m. What to watch for as the U.S. presidential votes are counted

The race to become America’s 47th president looks like it will be a photo finish between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris as Americans head to the polls Tuesday.

The two main candidates have been neck and neck through the last weeks of the campaign, but how they got to the finish line could not have been more different.

Harris, the current vice-president and a former U.S. senator and California attorney general, has pledged to create opportunities for the middle-class families, to support the push to restore abortion rights, and to heal the country after years of bitter political division.

Read the full story from the Star’s Allan Woods

8 a.m. Canadians prepare for any outcome 

Millions of Americans are heading to the polls Tuesday as a chaotic presidential campaign reaches its peak in a deeply divided United States, where voters in only a handful of battleground states will choose the country’s path forward.

Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump have presented starkly different visions for America’s future, but polling shows the two remain in a dead heat.

“Any election in the U.S. is important and impactful for us,” said Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States. “They are central to our economic prosperity. They are a vital security partner.”

Read the full story from The Canadian Press

7:35 a.m. Opinion: Kamala Harris can’t stop America from hating women

America hates women. Were I writing this for a major American newspaper — within days of an election that might deliver the nation its first woman president, or in general — I would likely be asked to hedge my assertion. “It may seem that America hates women,” I would probably write, bequeathing women-hating newspaper readers just enough plausible deniability to hang onto their paid subscriptions.

Fortunately for all involved, I can drop those pretences here. That’s because, outside of the U.S., the country’s hatred for women is plain. As of the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, abortion is fully banned in 13 states and heavily restricted in eight more; in parts of the country, women have been criminalized for miscarried pregnancies and stillbirths. The U.S. accounts for 70 per cent of female homicide victims from high-income countries and has the highest maternal mortality rate of the so-called “developed” world. Perhaps most telling of all, the country elected Donald Trump to be its president, and may do so again.

Read the column from Kelli Maria Korducki

7 a.m. American reaches Election Day

A presidential campaign marked by upheaval and rancour approached its finale on Election Day as Americans decided whether to send Donald Trump back to the White House or elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office.

Voters on Tuesday faced a stark choice between two candidates who have offered drastically different temperaments and visions for the world’s largest economy and dominant military power.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

6:30 a.m. Opinion: ‘Tomorrow! The sun’s coming up now!’ Inside Kamala Harris’s overly complicated, utterly exhausting final act in Philadelphia

Kamala Harris’s final argument to the American people — an exhausting and often baffling rally in Philadelphia — played out Monday night like a conservative fantasy of the worst that can happen when liberals are left in charge: It was expensive. It was overcomplicated. It left many of the people it purported to serve unsatisfied, annoyed and increasingly alienated as the night went on.

From a logistics point of view it was easily the worst large political event I have ever attended, and I covered Donald Trump in 2016. If it was a sign of how the broader Harris campaign was operating heading into election day, I fear it was a catastrophic one, at least for anyone desperate to move on from the last, endless decade of Donald Trump.

Read the full story from the Star’s Richard Warnica

Can Canadians watch the election?

Canadians are eager to see how the results of the contentious U.S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will shape the next four years.

But before they can get to that, they’ll have to tune in on Tuesday — not so simple, thanks to a media landscape that’s more fragmented than ever.

“A good chunk of Canadians are getting their news mostly from the internet,” says Philip Mai, co-director of the Social Media Lab at the Ted Rogers School of Management.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

What will the weather be like in battleground states on Election Day

Weather conditions can be one factor in how many people vote in person on Election Day.

The strongest weather in the U.S. forecast for Tuesday is in Montana where there could be blizzard conditions, but that state is not a battleground and is strongly favoured to go for Donald Trump.

Key battleground states including Michigan and Wisconsin are expected to see some rainfall.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

Monday 10 a.m. Doug Ford warns of the perils of protectionism on the eve of U.S. election

Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, Premier Doug Ford is warning that protectionism would hurt Ontario, America’s third-largest trading partner.

Ford — who has expressed concern about the threat by former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, to slap hefty tariffs on foreign goods and services — underscored the importance of trade between the province and U.S. states.

“Regardless of the outcome of this week’s elections, we stand ready to work with our partners south of the border,” the premier said in a statement Monday.

Read the full story from the Star’s Robert Benzie

Here’s what will really matter if Trump is re-elected

Word came unexpectedly in January 2017 that President Donald Trump wanted to talk to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Officials scrambled to connect the two leaders and racked their brains: what urgent matter had they not foreseen?

Trudeau had already had a friendly congratulatory call with the newly inaugurated Republican president. Trump, who campaigned on ripping up the North American free trade deal and forcing Canada and all NATO allies to spend more on defence, riffed on Trudeau’s famous father, the former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

Read the full story from the Star’s Tonda MacCharles

A look at U.S. presidential candidates’ ties to Canada ahead of this week’s election

Among the millions glued to their TV sets Tuesday night watching U.S. election results will be a group of people in Montreal with a particular connection to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris — her high school classmates.

Long before she became an American vice-president and presidential candidate, Harris spent several years in Montreal and attended Westmount High School from 1978 to 1981.

While she doesn’t talk much about that time, one of her former classmates believes her high school years helped shaped who she would become.

Read the full story form the Associated Press

Opinion: A final U.S. election plea to Trump’s MAGA supporters: Make America Sane Again

Dear MAGA:

We’ve had a rough ride over the last decade. I’ve written mean things about you. You’ve emailed mean things to me. It’s a hostile standoff in which I unfairly label you as dipsticks and you casually wish for my death in a fiery car crash.

Bygones! With the U.S. election less than 100 hours away, I come to you with an olive branch and one question: Can you survive a Trump 2.0?

As the Washington Post reported in 2021: “No other modern president has left the U.S. with a smaller workforce than it had when they took office.” Politico: “America’s trade gap soared under Trump.” FactCheck.org: “The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.” The Atlantic: “Trump is the worst president in history.”

Read the full story from Vinay Menon

Opinion: Donald Trump is going to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Here are three reasons why

If there is one thing I’ve learned in my time writing this column, it’s that readers, especially those who read regularly, would rather I be direct, precise and dead wrong, than prevaricating, wishy-washy and possibly correct.

So here goes.

Donald Trump is going to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election. On election night. Decisively.

Read the full story from Jaime Watt

Opinion: ‘When he talked about Puerto Rico, it was like, ‘That’s not them, that’s me’:’ Will one bad joke sink Donald Trump in the swingiest swing state in America?

The suburban collar counties of Philadelphia, a leafy stole draped on the shoulders of Pennsylvania’s largest city, exist in the American political imagination much like the Toronto suburbs do in the Canadian. No one in the country at large thinks about them all that much, in other words, until election years, when everyone thinks about them all of the time.

Read the full story from the Star’s Richard Warnica

Opinion: Pennsylvania is on fire: What we don’t talk about when we talk about Donald Trump

The weather in Philadelphia, just about everyone in Philadelphia is eager to say, is not normally this hot in November. The grass isn’t normally this yellow, either. The sidewalk cafes aren’t normally full at night. There aren’t normally lineups for ice cream outside in the month when the snow used to come, and the air used to freeze, and the late fall winds used to strip the trees of their last, carotenoid-laden leaves.

I landed in Philadelphia to cover the final days of the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 1. It was the region’s 33rd consecutive day without rain. The city itself had tied a record the day before for the hottest Halloween in history. It hit 28 C that afternoon and stayed hot overnight. On Friday, in nearby West Chester, a red-faced Secret Service agent desperately tried to inch into the shade while searching guests headed into an appearance by Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman of the United States. Earlier that day, in Allentown, north of the city, the mayor, wearing a black T-shirt and dark blue jeans, begged to do an interview in the shade after hosting a press conference with Rosie Perez.

Read the full story by Richard Warnica

Opinion: Why Kamala Harris should worry that Michigan’s blue collar could be turning red

Working class. Muscle class. Blue collar.

Whatever you call them — pollsters define the demographic as people without college degrees — they’re a great big chunk of labour that Kamala Harris is reportedly shedding by the day.

In Michigan, automotive workers, factory workers, steel mill workers — trade unionists — who have long flocked to the Democratic Party, a reliable voting bloc down through the decades. The union members who, in 2020, allowed President Joe Biden to carry the state — and its 16 electoral votes — by 154,000 votes, seizing the battleground state back from Donald Trump, who’d surprisingly claimed Michigan in 2016 by a razor-thin 0.23 per cent.

Read the column from Rosie DiManno

Opinion: This U.S. election campaign is stuffed with malice and bile. Can Kamala Harris or Donald Trump restore the America that was?

The American election is deadlocked.

That is, each side sees the other through a glass darkly, existentially calamitous for the country. In these waning hours of full throttle door-knocking and frenetic phonebank calling, foreboding rhetoric has been ratcheted to a smoke alarm pitch.

But this isn’t the end of days, whatever happens Tuesday. The republic survived Donald Trump once, it can do so again, should it come to that. And Kamala Harris isn’t a Marxist, or “crazy,” or “low I.Q.” — among the milder insults her opponent has thrown at her. Neither can undo 248 years of democracy forged in the fire, though only one has threatened to terminate the Constitution.

Read the full story from the Star’s Rosie DiManno

How did we get here?

It’s the election that no one could have foreseen.

Not so long ago, Donald Trump was marinating in self-pity at Mar-a-Lago after being impeached twice and voted out of the White House. Even some of his closest allies were looking forward to a future without the charismatic yet erratic billionaire leading the Republican Party, especially after his failed attempt to overturn an election ended in violence and shame. When Trump announced his comeback bid two years ago, the New York Post buried the article on page 26.

At the same time, Kamala Harris was languishing as a low-profile sidekick to President Joe Biden. Once seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, she struggled with both her profile and her portfolio, disappointing her supporters and delighting her critics. No one was talking about Harris running for the top job — they were wondering if Biden should replace her as his running mate when he sought a second term.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

What to watch for as U.S. Election Day approaches

Election Day is nearly upon us. In a matter of hours, the final votes in the 2024 presidential election will be cast.

In a deeply divided nation, the election is a true toss-up between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

We know there are seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, barring a major surprise. But major questions persist about the timing of the results, the makeup of the electorate, the influx of misinformation — even the possibility of political violence. At the same time, both sides are prepared for a protracted legal battle that could complicate things further.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

How does the election work? 

The U.S. presidential election is here. Tomorrow, millions of Americans will go to the polls in what will be one of the world’s most-watched elections.

Swing states, faithless electors, the electoral college — there’s a lot to know about the uniquely American spectacle that happens every four years. As our largest trading partner and border-sharing neighbour prepares to elect its next head of state, Canadians are waiting with baited breath to see who will land in the White House: Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or the Republican alternative, Donald Trump.

Read the full story from the Star’s Andy Takagi