Americans start casting votes for next U.S. president

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00:00And to give us an update live on the casting of ballots for the U.S. presidential elections,

00:04we have VOA correspondent Jessica Stone live from Arlington, Virginia.

00:09Good evening, Jessica, and good morning.

00:12Good morning all the way.

00:13Good morning and good evening to you.

00:16Wow, we are finally at this date.

00:18I can't believe that the year has flown by and we're finally at this pivotal moment.

00:23You know, the U.S. presidential election is actually underway and the world is holding

00:27its breath.

00:28What do you feel right now so far as the current voter turnout?

00:33Well, it's hard to say what the national voter turnout is, but we definitely saw a spike

00:39in certain groups coming to the polls for early voting.

00:42We saw more rural voters and more Republican voters take advantage of early voting, which

00:47started in some cases across the country as far back as a month ago.

00:51And that definitely indicates not only a desire to participate in the process, but also to

00:55make sure that barriers are reduced to participating in the process, right?

01:00Here in Virginia, we have seen a steady stream of voters.

01:03The wait right now, I'm told, behind me is about five or 10 minutes.

01:06When I early voted on Friday, it was quite a bit longer, closer to 20 or 25 minutes.

01:11So there, too, we saw an increase in early voting, although not as large as we saw back

01:18in 2020.

01:19But of course, that was in the height of the pandemic and all of those pandemic precautions.

01:25I think there was quite a bit of interest, but also a lot of disappointment in the candidates

01:33themselves.

01:34Both of these candidates have record low popularity ratings, although interestingly, Trump's popularity

01:37is slightly ahead in some polls of Harris's.

01:41And then, you know, just how this campaign came about, the comeback potentially of an

01:47impeached president going against the vice president, which was elevated at the last

01:51minute to the presidential nominee, really without any primary vetting.

01:56So there's a lot of controversy on both sides, but a lot of interest, too, because we have

02:01a world that is getting much more interested and much more dangerous.

02:05We have U.S. soldiers abroad that are still involved in conflicts in the Middle East,

02:10and the U.S. dollar is certainly also at play in Europe with the war in Ukraine.

02:15So a lot of implications and a lot of eyes watching, and that's not even to say anything

02:19of what's going on in Asia with the U.S.-China competition being front and center for many

02:24of our friends in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

02:28So even if we are actually on the ground right now with voters pouring in to their respective

02:33polls, what strategies would you say are Harris and Trump still pushing for at the last minute?

02:40Well, what we've seen from the Harris campaign is a hope and change message similar to Barack

02:47Obama's successful message, which got him twice sent to the White House, a looking forward

02:52and not looking back, a turning the page.

02:55These are phrases that she uses on the campaign trail and used again in Philadelphia in her

02:59final closing arguments on the steps of the rocky, the famous rocky steps from the movie

03:04in the city of brotherly love.

03:06She again and again talks about a new day in America, a new generation of leadership,

03:12not acknowledging that she's already been in office for three and a half years and has

03:15not been able to change some of the very policies that she's running against currently.

03:20That said, we also have, you know, Donald Trump making a largely negative message about

03:24his opponent, drilling down on the negative consequences he says would happen if Harris

03:30leads the country economically, particularly on immigration.

03:34And both of these camps really running to their core issues, right?

03:37Trump running to the economy and the immigration where he's perceived by voters as being strong

03:43and Harris running to sort of the democratic process and keeping stability as well as defense

03:48of reproductive rights, which is bringing a lot of voters to the polls, particularly

03:52young voters.

03:54So these are the final arguments from both campaigns.

03:57Both of the campaigns are now back at their campaign headquarters.

04:03Harris is here in the Washington, D.C. area at Howard University, where she will make

04:08the election.

04:09She'll be watching the election from there.

04:11And then Donald Trump, of course, down in Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

04:14Jessica, back in 2020, Joe Biden took four days to declare victory, largely due to delays

04:20in counting ballots in Pennsylvania.

04:22When do you think we can expect clarity on these election results?

04:28You know, that is a really important question and one I've been studying just to cover this

04:32election because election laws have changed so much around the country since 2020, when

04:37we had a lag in vote counting and that raised questions in parts of the country, particularly

04:42in Arizona and in Pennsylvania.

04:44But we still haven't had key changes in some critical battleground states.

04:48While we've had changes in when the count and the processing of the early vote begins

04:51in Arizona, we did not have those changes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

04:56They started counting absentee mail-in and early votes this morning at 6 a.m. or at 7

05:02a.m., depending on when those polls began opening.

05:06And so what that says is that in those states which are going to decide the Electoral College

05:10vote, if they are already behind at the beginning of the day, we expect the vote to continue

05:15for the day of vote well into the next day and perhaps even beyond.

05:18That's even before potential court cases are raised.

05:21If there are challenges on voter irregularities, on the counting process, on who's voting,

05:26on how they're voting, all of those things can take place.

05:29As you said, we had a four-day waiting period for the election result last time.

05:33We could be looking at easily that much because we're already seeing a tighter race now in

05:37terms of the polling than we did four years ago.

05:40And remember, it was only 43,000 votes across three critical swing states that gave the

05:46Biden-Harris administration victory.

05:48If it swings in the other way or it's even tighter, you can bet that there's going to

05:52be extra eyes on every single ballot being cast during this election.

05:56OK, just one more question, Jessica, if you will.

05:59Based on data or perhaps popular opinion, what do you feel or think would be the likely

06:03outcome of all the votes that's been counted?

06:06Are we looking at the president-elect again winning by the narrowest of margins with no

06:10more than 275 electoral votes?

06:13Are we looking at a 2020 scenario?

06:14Are we looking at the president-elect winning four more swing states to include Pennsylvania

06:21or a landslide win in the electoral count like former President Donald Trump states?

06:27So I'll be one of the people that will tell you I could not possibly predict the outcome

06:31of this election.

06:32If I could do that, man, I would probably put that in a predictive ability to work in

06:36some more personally advantageous ways.

06:40But certainly this is a very tight election, as I stated earlier, 43,000 votes swung the

06:45election four years ago.

06:47More people are voting.

06:48This is a tighter race, according to the polls.

06:51That doesn't mean we can't be surprised because we've certainly seen in the last four to eight

06:55years that polling doesn't always reflect the electorate accurately.

06:59So we continue to watch the polling.

07:02We continue to hear from the campaigns what their own internal polling is indicating.

07:06But it could run the gamut from a very close election that stretches for days to a landslide

07:10if the polling is really off.

07:12I couldn't really say.

07:13And again, I'm unfortunately not able to be in the prediction business.

07:17But I am closely watching, I can assure you.

07:19All right.

07:20Thank you very much, Jessica Stone, live from Arlington, Virginia.

07:24Thanks for your updates.

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