With hours left until polls open on election day in the United States on Tuesday, the country, and the world, faces a nail-biting wait to know whether Kamala Harris becomes the first US woman President or Donald Trump secures a spectacular return to power after his unprecedented and at times violent campaign to overturn his 2020 reelection loss to Joe Biden.

Both the White House contenders have placed maximum pressure on voters and have frantically blitzed several swing states as they try to win over the last holdouts ahead of the high-stress US presidential election.

The 2024 race is going down to the wire, with more key states effectively tied at this point than in any comparable election. More than 80 million people, around half of the total ballots cast in 2020, have already cast early ballots as the hours tick down to the election day climax Tuesday.

On November 5, polling stations in some American states will begin functioning between 7 am and 9 am (US time). As per the Indian Standard Time, the US elections are scheduled to begin roughly at 4.30 pm on November 5 and will continue until 6.30 am on November 6.