US election: First results from Kentucky and Indiana suggest Donald Trump support is still strong
Both of the earliest states are strongly Republican, but the vote shares offer an early insight into how votes are working out
The first results from the US election are showing that Donald Trump's support is staying strong.
Initial indications from Kentucky show that the Republican candidate is dominating the voting in that state, with 79 per cent of the ballots yet counted.
Only 1 per cent of the vote is in so far, and the state was always likely to support Donald Trump. But the results show that Mr Trump's support is still holding strong.
Kentucky was one of the first states to close at 6pm eastern time and is likely to be one of the first to declare its results. It is almost certain that voters there will back Donald Trump, but the margin of victory might prove a useful way of understanding the support he is generating across the country.
The results may change over time, since so small a proportion of the electorate has voted so far.
Similar results were seen in Indiana, with early votes showing strong results for Mr Trump. But that state too was always expected to be won by the Republicans – not only has it historically supported the party, it is the home state of Mike Pence, Mr Trump's running mate and Indiana's governor.
The probabilities are moving slightly towards a Trump win – but not enough to make a difference.
Bookmaker Paddy Power said Clinton's chance of taking the White House dipped slightly to 81.8 percent on Election Day from 83.3 percent, while Trump's probability improved to 22 percent from 20 percent.
"The flow of money is relatively even with it slightly favoring Trump," said a Paddy Power spokesman.
He said Paddy Power has seen at least 20 four- and five-figure bets placed on Tuesday. Different bookmakers and exchanges have different closing times for placing bets.
Donald Trump Jr has said that his father will accept the result of the election – with one big caveat. As long as the voting is "legit and fair", he said, his father will accept that he has lost.
With polls suggesting Mrs Clinton had a narrow lead before election day, Donald Trump Jr said his father would concede defeat if he loses, provide the result is "legit and fair".
He told MSNBC: "All we've wanted is a fair fight.
"If he loses and it's legit and fair, and there's not obvious stuff out there - without question, yes."
Edward Snowden has warned that it would be 'not that difficult' to hack voting machines. As such, authorities should make sure to watch for results that appear to suggest that something untoward might have been happening, he has said.
Researchers just demonstrated how to hack the official vote count with a $30 card. Details: https://t.co/uhcLVd0yPghttps://t.co/uIFOQVb5uu
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Little time to patch this vuln, but can still forbid use of this model, run statistical analysis after polls close on rest to ID outliers.
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Hacking voting machines: not that difficult. Hiding a secret deviation in votes from after-the-fact statistical analysis: nearly impossible.
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Will be interesting to see how low this goes for @realDonaldTrump twitter.com/LeahRigueur/st…
Barack Obama has said that he still has faith in the American people after a bitter election campaign.
Asked whether he was feeling nervous about the presidential election outcome, Obama said "I think we'll do a good job" as long as the American people vote.
Lines were long in some areas as voters chose between Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump and some third-party candidates.
Obama said he hopes everyone has "voted early. If not, get out there."
Obama supports Clinton and voted early last month in his Chicago hometown. He spoke while walking from the White House residence to the Oval Office, following his Election Day tradition of playing basketball with friends.
'The All-Seeing Trump' near his election party venue in New York (pic: Getty) http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cww4JRuUoAA_aFj.jpg
Here's the breaking news on the extraordinary Nevada case – and its extraordinary failure www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-nevada-lawsuit-result-polls-open-extra-long-us-election-2016-swing-state-a7405486.html
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