| Within hours, the U.S. will have a new president decided by tens of millions of Americans at the polls today. As Election Day winds to a close, here's what you need to know. |
| Haven't voted yet? |
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| • See what kind of ID you are required to bring. Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin are most strict about photo voter ID. |
| • See when polls in your state will close. You probably still have a few hours. |
| • Think twice before taking a selfie. Take it from Justin Timberlake , who caught attention after posting a photo of himself in a Tennessee voting booth. It's not legal in every state. Vermont is one of about 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, where posting a photo yourself in the election booth with a finished ballot is accepted as a reality of the mobile age. In slightly fewer, however, it's not allowed, and laws in states including Arizona, Texas and Ohio are unclear. That's according to an analysis by the Associated Press that's been updated by a recent flurry of state decisions that clarified rules in the past few weeks. |
| • Still undecided on a presidential candidate? Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton recently outlined their policies in recent USA TODAY editorials. Trump promises to clean up corruption. Clinton said she's looking for common ground . Both candidates cast their votes earlier today. The New York businessman voted at a school in Manhattan, N.Y., joking with reporters: "Tough decision." Clinton cast a ballot for herself in Chappaqua, N.Y. and said, " I'll do the very best I can if I'm fortunate enough to win today." |
| How votes are counted |
| • By the end of the night, more than 100 million individual voting decisions will be distilled into the only votes that count: the 538 votes in the Electoral College. The first candidate to 270 wins. |
| • Beyond the red states and blue states, voters will be segmented into bellwether counties, in-person voters and absentee ballots, and dozens of demographic groups: men and women, the more and less educated, Baby Boomers and Millennials, Catholics and Jews, African-Americans and Hispanics, union and non-union households. For savvy election watchers, understanding those differences can send signals about who's winning and whose losing even before the last vote is cast. |
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| • With the results in most states seemingly predetermined, the race comes down to a handful of "swing states" - places like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Nevada. Most analysts agree that Donald Trump needs more of those states than Hillary Clinton does. |
| Get live results, as they come in |
| • No TV? No problem: Cord cutters and those with mobile devices have an alternative to network news and cable-TV news operations. There are plenty of other ways to find election results. Google, YouTube, news apps (download USA TODAY's for iPhone and Android), Facebook Messenger bots, live streaming and Votecastr will all have updating results. |
| • Follow along live with USA TODAY on Facebook starting at 7 p.m. Co-hosted by USA TODAY reporters Marco della Cava and Laura Petrecca, the live 20-minute segments begin at the top of the hour and feature commentary from the USA TODAY Network's political reporters in the Beltway and at around 100 outlets across the nation. Coverage will stream across the USA TODAY Network, the USA TODAY app, YouTube and 109 Facebook-related pages. |
| Late results could make all the difference |
| • Assuming Trump has made it through the early vote gauntlet, Nevada, Arizona and Utah are the other fascinating battlegrounds. Utah is a wild card, because while it almost always votes Republican, this time around independent Evan McMullin could pull enough votes to take the state away from Trump. |
| • Looking at the concession patterns in the last three elections, the race could be called before midnight or Wednesday morning. In 2004, Democrat John Kerry called Republican George W. Bush at 11:02 a.m. after Election Day to concede when updated voting numbers in Ohio made it clear it was almost impossible for him to win the state, and therefore the election. In 2008, Republican John McCain delivered his concession speech shortly after 11:20 p.m. on Election Day. A few minutes earlier, CBS estimated that Democrat Barack Obama would be the next president. In the last election, Republican Mitt Romney called Obama to concede at 12:49 a.m. Nov. 6, 2012. |
| This is a compilation of stories from USA TODAY. |
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