The race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is on a knife-edge, with no clear winner as vote-counting continues
Results suggest a tight contest in important battlegrounds: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania
Trump is so far projected to win 23 states, including Texas, Ohio and must-win Florida, having outperformed pollsters' predictions
The president makes baseless claims of fraud and says he will launch a Supreme Court challenge even though millions of votes are still to be counted
Biden could take Arizona, but is facing a much tougher fight than expected in Nevada. He says he is "on track to win"
His campaign calls President's Trump statement "outrageous", adding: "The counting will not stop"
The US is on course for its highest turnout in more than a century, and we might not have a result for days
Live Reporting
Edited by Rebecca Seales

All times stated are UK

Posted at 11:3811:38
What voters thought about the key issues
Exit poll data from across the US has given a glimpse into voters' priorities and an indication of how different demographic groups have cast their ballots.

Nationally, more than a third of voters said the economy was the most important issue in deciding whom to choose as president, with a further two in 10 naming racial inequality and 17% saying the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the issues were split along partisan lines with more than four times as many Trump voters saying the economy was the deciding factor, and Biden voters answering racial inequality and the virus.

Voters were evenly split on how the US economy was faring, with 48% saying it was in "excellent or good" condition and 50% saying it was "not so good or poor".

Similarly, 50% said that the US was doing "somewhat or very badly" at containing the pandemic and 48% thought the country was doing "somewhat or very well".

The possibility of voter fraud has been raised repeatedly by the Trump campaign, but a large majority of voters (87%) told the researchers they were confident that votes in their state would be counted accurately.

Reality Check

Posted at 11:2511:25
Who threatened court action during the campaign?
In a speech reacting to the unfolding election results, President Trump said he’d be going to the US Supreme Court and said of the Democrats: "They knew they couldn’t win, so they said let’s go to court."

During the campaign, Trump has been a vocal proponent of the use of litigation. Speaking at a rally in North Carolina on Sunday he said "we’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers."

Former Vice-President Biden has not spoken directly about using lawyers in the aftermath of the election.

But, like President Trump, Biden has a legal team on standby, led by former White House Counsel Bob Bauer, and has fundraised in anticipation of a lengthy legal battle.

According to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections project there were already 437 election-related lawsuits in the run-up to the election. This legal action, some of which is ongoing, has been undertaken by both Democrats and Republicans.

Posted at 11:1711:17
WATCH: Latinos for Trump celebrate in Florida
In Miami, many of the president's Cuban supporters were elated over his projected win in the sunshine state.

Florida has 29 coveted electoral votes, and much of Trump’s Latin base in the state cited their fears of socialism when asked about their support for the president.

Posted at 11:0811:08
Facebook warns users about Trump victory claim
Facebook has responded to President Trump’s unsubstantiated statement of victory in the election.

“Once President Trump began making premature claims of victory, we started running top-of-feed notifications on Facebook and Instagram so that everyone knows votes are still being counted and the winner has not been projected,” a Facebook spokesperson told NBC News.

Millions of legitimate votes are still being counted in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and others which could still determine the outcome of the election. Election officials say it could be days before the winner in these states is confirmed.

Earlier, Twitter took similar steps to counter misleading information surrounding the election result. It placed a warning on a tweet from Trump in which he said, without evidence, that "they are trying to STEAL the Election".

Posted at 11:0011:00
A legal showdown looms
Anthony Zurcher

BBC North America reporter

What was once a nightmare scenario is taking shape, with Biden saying he is on a path to victory and Trump lobbing unfounded accusations of voter fraud and electoral theft.

It's a recipe for acrimony and a protracted court battle, which ends with supporters on the losing side feeling angry and cheated.

Although the final results aren't known, what is clear after election night is that the US continues to be a sharply divided nation.

The American voters did not repudiate Trump in any meaningful way. Nor did they give him the kind of ringing endorsement that the president had hoped for.

Instead, the battle lines are drawn - and the political warfare will continue no matter who prevails in this particular election.

Read more from Anthony's analysis of the results so far here.

Posted at 10:4410:44
German defence minister sees 'explosive situation'
President Trump has plunged the US into a “battle for the legitimacy” of the presidential election after his unfounded declaration of victory, Germany’s defence minister has said.

“This is a very explosive situation,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told German broadcaster ZDF on Wednesday.

She said election experts had rightly warned of a "constitutional crisis” in the US should Trump dispute a potentially unfavourable result.

Earlier, Trump threatened to mount a legal challenge in the Supreme Court to stop legitimate ballots from being tallied in key swing states after election day.

But Kramp-Karrenbauer told ZDF that "this election has not been decided” because “votes are still being counted”.

Diplomatic relations between Germany and the US have been shaky during Trump's presidency. But Germany, a long-time ally of the US, has expressed hopes that the relationship will improve again after the election, whoever wins.

Posted at 10:3710:37
Where do we stand now?
Welcome if you're just joining our live coverage of the US presidential election 2020. With votes still being counted and several swing states yet to declare results, both President Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden say they are on course for victory.

Here's how election night unfolded:

In the race to get the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House, Biden is currently projected to win 224. Trump is predicted to win 213 - but the outcome of this election is now likely to be determined by the tens of millions of postal ballots yet to be counted
Results suggest a tight race in the key battlegrounds of the Midwest and Rust Belt of Pennsylvania - where Democrats may be counting on an increased turnout in urban and suburban areas - Michigan and Wisconsin, and the result might not be known for days
Speaking from the White House late in the evening, Trump made an unsubstantiated statement of victory, and said he would launch a Supreme Court challenge - without providing any evidence
Vice-President Mike Pence tried to smooth over Trump's remarks, declining to declare premature victory and insisting that all the legally cast votes would be counted
Biden's campaign team said Trump's questioning of the legitimacy of yet-to-be-counted ballots "was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect"
Biden told supporters in Delaware that the election was "not over until every ballot is counted" and insisted: "We are on track to win"
Election day saw a near-record voter turnout. As polls began to close late on Tuesday, protests against Trump were held in the streets of Washington DC, leading to some tense scenes

That's no way this election wasn't going to be rigged. After the complain of about rigging in the last election.

America, welcome to Nigeria

Hmmmm

That is where wired fraud originated from

How can an incumbent candidate be rigged out by his opponent. . . if trump losses he losses.. He should shut up already. Must he win
If he must win then it's not a contest. A US president should not be as volatile as Trump is right now!

Anyone who wins.. It seriously does not concern me , am not an American.