As polls close across the country this Election Day and states begin counting ballots, how will you know who's winning the presidential election and how people voted?
In Illinois, polls close at 7 p.m. CT Tuesday in most locations, and results will begin populating in the first half-hour. In Indiana and Kentucky, some polls close as early as 5 p.m. CT, while some East Coast states' polls begin closing at 6 p.m. CT and West Coast states' polls close at 10 p.m. CT.
LIVE ELECTION COVERAGE BEGINS AT 3 P.M. CT IN THE PLAYER ABOVE.
To track live election totals from around Illinois, check back on our live election results page.
To see how people around the country voted for the next United States president, NBC News' live election map is below.
Election Map Live Results: Presidential Election Across the U.S.
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For a view of how people voted for president in sections of Illinois, check out our live election results map. The map will update every 15 minutes once Illinois results start coming in.
Election Map Live Results: Presidential Election in Illinois
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As for when we find out who the next United States president will be, experts have warned that we may not know for some time whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential race.
In key swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, clerks are unable to process mail-in ballots prior to Election Day. In 2020, those states were decided by approximately 20,000 and 80,000 votes, respectively.
Experts told NBC Chicago the gap between the candidates will play a major factor in when results are called and what happens in the days after the election.
This time, both campaigns believe the race is extremely close across the seven swing states that are expected to decide the election, barring a major surprise: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Delays aren't unheard of in a presidential race, however, according to Dr. Kevin Boyle, chair of the history department for Northwestern University.
“There are a lot of stories of presidential candidates just going to bed not knowing whether they had won the presidency or not," Boyle said.
In 2020, it took four days before President Joe Biden was officially called the winner. In 2000, results hinged on just 537 votes in Florida, with networks calling the state for Al Gore, then George Bush before ruling the race "too close to call."
"I do want people to not freak out about the election because actually we've gotten better at running these elections than we did in 2000," said Professor Michael Kang of the Northwestern University School of Law. "There's no comparison to how efficiently elections are run today and how professionally they're run today as compared to 25 years ago."
Still, the 2016 election was decided just hours after most polls closed.
