Election Day 2020 has ended and results are still rolling in early Wednesday. We'll keep you updated here with the latest updates, coverage and results.
7:26 PM - President Donald Trump's campaign filed lawsuits Wednesday in Pennsylvania and Michigan, laying the groundwork for contesting the outcome in states that could determine whether he gets another four years in the White House.
Read more here.
4:25 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Michigan, granting him an additional 16 electoral votes.
2:25 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the apparent winner in Wisconsin, granting him an additional 10 electoral votes.
An apparent winner is the candidate that has won the race, but the outcome is close enough that the results may depend on a potential recount or confirmation of reported results.
12:37 PM - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis praised the state's election departments for what he said was a smoothly run Election Day.
"I think it's a testament to the state's performance that you, as we see chaos unfolding in some of these other battleground states where the votes may not be counted for days," DeSantis said at news conference in Tallahassee Wednesday. "People are actually looking at Florida and asking the question 'why can't these states be more like Florida?'"
DeSantis said the elections departments were able to quickly tabulate the state's 11 million ballots. "The way Florida did it I think inspires confidence, I think that's how elections should be run," he added.
12:01 PM - NBC News projects Biden is the winner in Maine.
11:31 AM - Aristotle is known to have once said that "patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." If that's the case, then U.S. voters are still enduring the bitter part of the 2020 elections, as there are millions of ballots yet to be counted in crucial states.
Pennsylvania officials urged patience at a press conference Wednesday morning as counties continued to tally mail-in ballots, saying again that they had expected for the count to be a slow process.
Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that they expect to receive 2.5 to 3 million mail-in ballots — 10 times the number of mail-in ballots cast in 2016. Only 50 percent have been counted as of Wednesday morning, she said, saying millions more were still left to be tallied.
8:15 AM - If you’re just waking up, you’re likely wondering who won the presidential election. The answer: We don’t know. Nine states remain in the race between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Winners could be determined today in some of the outstanding states, but some will likely take longer to finish counting their ballots. One of them is Pennsylvania, which will resume its ballot counting at 10 a.m.
Biden, the former Vice President, holds a 224-213 lead in the electoral college and has a slight leads in several states that have still not been called, including Wisconsin and Arizona.
Biden leads the popular vote by more than two million votes, and that lead will likely widen as more votes come in. Ultimately, the election could be decided in the courts.
4:42 AM - NBC News projects that Joe Biden is the winner in Hawaii, granting him another 4 electoral votes. His victory in the state extends a blue streak where the Democratic candidate has won the state in each election since 1988.
2:30 AM - President Donald Trump speaks to supporters at the White House. "The results tonight have been phenomenal," he said, pointing out his wins in Florida, Ohio and Texas.
As he spoke, Trump was trailing in both the electoral vote and the popular vote, according to NBC News, which had yet to project a winner in 10 states.
"We will win this," he said. Flanked by family members on stage, Trump spoke for less than 10 minutes before leaving.
1:38 AM - NBC News projects that Joe Biden is the winner in Minnesota, granting him another 10 electoral votes.
Hillary Clinton narrowly won the state over Trump in 2016. Biden now holds a 220 to 213 lead over Trump in the Electoral College.
1:25 AM - Florida voters have approved Amendment 2, the proposal to gradually boost the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Amendment 1, which clarifies that only U.S. citizens over age 18 were eligible to vote in elections, also passed. Click here to view the results of the amendments on Florida's ballot.
1:10 AM - NBC News projects that President Trump is the winner of Texas, collecting another 38 Electoral College votes.
12:57 AM - NBC News projects that President Trump is the winner of Iowa, another swing state victory, granting him 6 more electoral votes.
12:54 AM - Biden addresses supporters early Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware, optimistic of a victory.
"We feel good about where we are," he said, adding, "We feel we're on track to win this election. We knew, because of the unprecedented early vote, the mail-in vote, it was going to take a while. We have to be patient."
Biden holds a 205 to 165 lead over Trump in the Electoral College.
12:39 AM - NBC New projects that Trump is the winner in Florida, granting him 29 electoral votes.
12:20 AM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Virginia, granting him 13 electoral votes.
12:00 AM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Ohio, granting him 18 electoral votes.
11:55 AM - Debra Hixon, the widow of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School athletic director Chris Hixon, wins a seat on the nine-member Broward County school board.
11:37 PM - Maria Elvira Salazar wins the race for Florida's 27th Congressional District. In a statement, her opponent, Donna Shalala, conceded.
11:01 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in California, Washington, Oregon, and Illinois, granting him another 94 electoral votes.
11:00 PM - As the votes roll in, parts of Miami are holding watch parties to await the results of the election.
10:30 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in New Hampshire, granting him another 4 electoral votes.
10:25 PM - NBC News projects that Democrats will keep control of the House, which was 232-197 going into the election.
10:14 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in New Mexico, granting him another 5 electoral votes.
10:11 PM - New Jersey votes to legalize marijuana for people 21 or older, NBC News projects.
9:32 PM - NBC News projects that Trump is the winner in North Dakota and Alabama and South Carolina, granting him another 21 electoral votes.
9:18 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Colorado, granting him another 9 electoral votes. Trump is the projected winner in South Dakota and Arkansas, granting him another 9 electoral votes.
9:00 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in New York, granting him another 29 electoral votes.
8:39 PM - Steve Bovo concedes the race for Miami-Dade County Mayor to Daniella Levine Cava. Cava is the first woman to be elected mayor of Miami-Dade.
"To all the women with a dream of shattering our highest glass ceiling, we did it," the newly elected mayor wrote on Twitter.
8:25 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Connecticut, granting him another 7 electoral votes.
8:16 PM - Gregory Tony wins the race for sheriff of Broward County. "Together, we did this," Tony wrote on Twitter.
"I look forward to leading the great and hard-working people at the Broward Sheriff's Office over the next four years as we continue to make BSO the finest law enforcement agency in Florida and an example of excellence for the nation."
8:13 PM - NBC News projects that Trump is the winner in Tennessee and Oklahoma, granting him another 18 electoral votes.
8:00 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Massachusetts, Delaware, and Maryland, granting him another 24 electoral votes. Trump is also the projected winner in Kentucky, granting him another 8 electoral votes.
7:52 PM - NBC News projects that Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the winner for Florida's 23rd congressional district, and Democrat Alcee Hastings is the winner for district 20.
7:44 PM - NBC News projects that Lois Frankel is the winner in the race for Florida's 21st congressional district, and Ted Deutch is the winner for district 22.
7:25 PM - NBC News projects that Democrat Frederica Wilson is the winner in the race for Florida’s 24th congressional district.
7:20 PM - NBC News projects that Biden is the winner in Vermont, granting him 3 electoral votes.
7:14 PM - Of 1,563,572 registered voters in Miami-Dade County, 1,018,246 cast their ballots in the 2020 general elections, a voter turnout rate of 65.12%.
In Broward County, a 837,640 residents cast their ballots, a voter turnout rate of 66.1%.
7:02 PM - NBC News projects that Trump is the winner in Indiana, granting him 11 electoral votes.
7:00 PM - The polls have closed in Florida. NBC 6's live local election night special will be available on both stations’ websites, apps, Roku, local COZI TV channels and TeleXitos channels platforms from 7:00 to 11:00 pm EST. We will also be carrying live NBC Network Decision 2020 coverage on air and online.
5:12 PM - As of 5 p.m., 115,000 people have cast their ballots in-person in Miami-Dade, according to a spokesperson from the county's elections department.
4:15 PM - A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered U.S. Postal Service inspectors to sweep more than two dozen mail processing facilities for lingering mail-in ballots and for those ballots to be sent out immediately.
The order, which includes centers in central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, South Florida and parts of Wisconsin, comes after national delivery delays leading up to the election and concerns the agency wouldn’t be able to deliver ballots on time.
On Friday, 48 undelivered ballots were found sitting in a post office near Homestead. Miami-Dade's Supervisor of Elections Christina White said Monday that she was confident the issue wasn't widespread.
“They have also assured me that as of late as this morning, that all 67 postal facilities within Miami-Dade County would receive the same sweep and all ballots would be returned to our office," White said.
3:00 PM - Across South Florida, voters are showing support for their candidates from Coral Gables to Hollywood.
At the voting center located at the Coral Gables Library, a group of performers sang for Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Daniella Levine Cava. She danced in front of them, wearing white in a nod to women's suffrage.
2:00 PM - Miami-Dade County's elections department will not release information about voter numbers until after the polls close, since its system does not update in the same way that Broward's does.
Robert Rodriguez, a Miami-Dade elections spokesperson, told NBC 6 that roughly 88,000 people had voted in-person as of 2 p.m. Before election day, 65% of registered county voters had already cast their vote early or by mail.
1:20 PM - Turnout of registered voters in Broward County has now reached 72%, exceeding the 71.55% turnout of the 2016 election with nearly six more hours of voting yet to come.
The 912,054 votes cast as of 1:20 pm show large early in-person and mail-in voting has not cannibalized Election Day turnout, which, in Broward, peaked in 1992 at 82.5%.
Republicans, who make up 21% of Broward voters, have so far cast 22.5% of all ballots in the county. Democrats have cast 52%.
1:00 PM - U.S. Representative Donna Shalala, who is up for reelection in Florida's 27th congressional district, greets voters at a deli in Miami.
Shalala's competitor, Spanish-language television journalist Maria Elvira Salazar, spent part of the morning encouraging people to vote in Key Biscayne.
11:36 AM - Several businesses in the Miami Design District are gearing up as the nation awaits the results of the presidential election. Some have boarded up their windows and doors, while others are keeping them unprotected.
10:42 AM - Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Steve Bovo arrives to vote with members of his family.
The current county commissioner is running against his former co-worker, Daniella Levine Cava, as the county will have a new mayor for the first time since 2011. On paper, it's a non-partisan race, though Levine Cava has mostly aligned herself with Democrats while Bovo has aligned himself with conservatives.
10:30 AM - First Lady Melania Trump arrived Tuesday morning to a voting location in West Palm Beach to cast her ballot.
After casting her vote, Melania Trump was approached by a reporter who asked why she chose to vote on Election Day, rather than a week and a half ago with President Donald Trump.
"Today is Election Day, and I wanted to vote on Election Day," Melania Trump said. Watch the full exchange below.
The first lady was the only person not wearing a mask when she entered the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center to vote, presumably for her husband. It’s unclear if she wore a face covering inside the voting center.
In a final pitch to supporters headed to the polls on Tuesday, President Trump expressed confidence in his chances of winning reelection but insisted he won't play games in declaring victory prematurely. In a phone interview with "Fox & Friends," Trump said he believes he has a "very solid chance of winning," pointing to large crowd sizes at his campaign rallies as a positive sign.
9:13 AM - Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Daniella Levine Cava arrives to cast her ballot in Palmetto Bay, surrounded by supporters.
The former county commissioner is running against her former coworker, county commissioner Esteban "Steve" Bovo, after they were the top two finishers in the August primary. On paper, it's a non-partisan race, though Levine Cava has mostly aligned herself with Democrats while Bovo has aligned himself with conservatives.
9:00 AM - South Florida business owners took steps to protect their stores late Monday and early Tuesday ahead of the Election Day outcome, as law enforcement said there would be an increased presence.
On Lincoln Road in Miami Beach and in Midtown, some businesses were boarding up their windows as a precaution in case things get heated. Police agencies and officials in Miami-Dade and Broward said they were making sure security was in place both at the polls and after the election.
7:00 AM - The polls opened across South Florida, and voters began waiting in lines to cast their ballots.
Videos and images of voters in long lines across the country flooded social media.
Isolated incidents of technical glitches and delayed openings spawned long lines at some polling sites around the country, but no major reports of widespread problems for what is expected to be a historic turnout, NBC News reports.
There were also reports of misinformation in an effort to suppress voting.
Federal authorities are monitoring voting and any threats to the election across the country at an operations center just outside Washington, D.C., run by the cyber-security component of the Department of Homeland Security. Officials there said there were no major problems detected early Tuesday but urged the public to be wary and patient.
ELECTION GUIDES
NBC 6's live local election night special will be available on both stations’ websites, apps, Roku, local COZI TV channels and TeleXitos channels platforms from 7:00 to 11:00 pm EST. We will also be carrying live NBC Network Decision 2020 coverage on air and online.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube, where we'll be posting the latest updates and analyses. You can also download our app for iOS or Android to keep up with breaking news, and catch us on air for special coverage.
Early voting results: slightly more Democrats have cast their ballots in the state so far
Slightly more Florida Democrats have cast ballots than Republicans in Florida, but that was also the case four years ago before President Donald Trump's late surge narrowly took the state.
With early voting completed and the return of mail-in ballots slowing, state figures released Monday show that out of 9 million ballots cast, 108,000 more Democrats have voted than Republicans.
In Miami-Dade County 513,646 people voted early, with the largest turnout being day one at 43,396 votes, according to the county's elections office. In Broward, the county's unofficial total was at 364,723 as of Sunday evening.
It is unknown who these voters cast ballots for, but Democrats are expected to overwhelmingly support former Vice President Joe Biden. The same applies to Republicans and Trump.
Florida could be key in determining the presidential race, but it is likely we won't have conclusive results by tonight
Florida, with 29 electoral votes, is a must-win state for Trump to have a realistic chance of being reelected. The pre-Election Day margin in the president's adopted home state was slightly tighter in 2016, when 96,000 more Democrats voted early or by mail than Republicans out of 6.5 million cast — but Trump had a strong turnout on Election Day and carried the state over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 113,000 votes or 1.2 percentage points.
There is one significant difference this time — because more voters have already cast ballots, significantly fewer are expected to show up Tuesday. In 2016, 3 million Floridians voted on Election Day.
This year, between 1.5 million and 2 million are expected, meaning Trump will need to carry a larger percentage of those.
As far as vote-by-mail ballots, the timeline for counting these has dramatically changed in the age of coronavirus, and there aren’t uniform practices across states. For example, Florida and North Carolina began processing early ballots ahead of time, with officials there forecasting earlier unofficial returns.
Meanwhile Pennsylvania and Michigan, battlegrounds Trump won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, aren’t expected to have complete totals for days.
That makes it difficult to predict when certain key battlegrounds, much less a national result, could be called. It's possible, but highly unlikely, that we'll know if Trump or Biden is victorious by nighttime.
The nation is braced for potential unrest, but local police say they're ready to keep voters safe
Since results may not be known for days to come, law enforcement agencies as well as private businesses are bracing themselves lest the vote lead to unrest of the sort that broke out earlier this year amid protests over racial inequality.
A new anti-scale fence was erected around the White House, and in downtowns ranging from New York to Denver to Minneapolis, workers have boarded up businesses.
On Monday, local officials told NBC 6 that the U.S. Department of Justice was sending monitors to police departments in Broward and Miami-Dade counties to help officers monitor any chaos that may break out on election day.
“Voters should be completely confident that we’re gonna protect their right to vote. We are not gonna allow any intimidation, any suppression of anybody’s vote regardless of who they’re voting for,” said Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Karen Dietrich.
Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina said that early voting had been a smashing success, with no instances of voter intimidation to speak of in South Florida.
“So go out and vote, and we’re gonna make sure that we do our job to keep you safe and everything’s gonna be fine,” Colina said.
Feeling stressed about the outcome? Experts recommend paying attention to diet, sleep and exercise
Does this election have you stressed out? "Election Stress Disorder" is real. In fact, doctors say hospitalizations for things like strokes and heart attacks almost doubled in the two days after the 2016 election.
"Now in 2020, we're nine months into a pandemic and also the two parties are so divided that the only thing they agree on is that the end of the world is coming if the adversary gets elected, so now we're faced with enormous stress,” said Dr. Allan Stewart, who leads the Cardiovascular Surgical Programs for facilities in Miami-Dade.
To protect yourself and your well-being during this time, Dr. Steward suggests paying attention to meditation, exercise, diet and sleep.
“Those are the four things you should be focusing on at least in the next two days," Dr. Stewart said. He also recommends using a meditation app to focus on your breathing and remain calm.
"Aside from voting and getting everyone else to vote, we really can’t do much for the outcome," he advised. "So it’s going to be what it is, and we are going to have to move forward."
