Look back on RNZ's team's updates as the votes came in from the US Presidential election.
Watch the Checkpoint US election special, and follow live updates below:
In the final hours of an election held amid a pandemic gripping a deeply divided United States, Americans streamed to the polls on Tuesday to choose between incumbent President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden on a day with little of the disruption many had feared.
It's been a long and bitter campaign amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Voters, many wearing masks and maintaining social-distancing to guard against the spread of the Covid-19, experienced long lines in a few locales and short waits in many other places.
There were no signs of disruptions or violence at polling sites, as some officials had feared.
The winner - who may not be determined for days - will lead a nation strained by a pandemic that has killed more than 231,000 people and left millions more jobless, racial tensions and political polarisation that has only worsened during a vitriolic campaign.
Photo: RNZ / Vinay Ranchhod
A third of US voters listed the economy as the issue that mattered most to them when deciding their choice for president while two out of 10 cited Covid-19, according to an Edison Research exit poll on Tuesday.
Biden, 77, appeared to have multiple paths to victory in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner; at least 270 electoral votes, determined in part by a state's population, are needed to win.
Trump, 74, is close enough in several election battleground states that he could repeat the type of upset he pulled off in 2016, when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton despite losing the national popular vote by about 3 million ballots.
National polls give a firm lead to Biden, but it is a closer race in the states that could decide the outcome.
The most closely watched vote results will start to trickle in after 7pm Eastern Standard Time, but counting could go on for several days.
- Reuters with RNZ
