Security high as US takes to polls to elect new president#CAPonline

The United States will elect its next President Tuesday and while four candidates are on the ballot in most states only two have a viable chance of winning enough Electoral College votes to replace President Barack Obama in the White House.


Security across the country will be on high alert through election-day including an extraordinary presence of New York’s finest across the city as the focus now shifts from persuasion to mobilisation and getting supporters to show up at the polls.

National polls have Democratic Hillary Clinton maintaining a three to six point advantage over Republican nominee Donald Trump while the candidates and their surrogates have spent the last weeks of this campaign, barnstorming the all-important battleground states that will determine the outcome of today’s poll.  

After 18 months of crisscrossing this country, candidates and those who speak for them are finally making their closing arguments to the electorate.

A stark choice between a brash anti-establishment billionaire who has confounded political scientists with his success despite everything he says and does - and a career politician, not without scandal, who could become the first woman in history to ever be called US Commander-in-Chief.

"I believe America's best days are still ahead of us. Now that doesn't mean we don't have to work for it because we do. That doesn't mean that we can just expect to happen as kind of a birth right, but I really believe that, I would not have worked for 18 months travelled across our country, thought as hard as I have about what we need to do and how to do it together proudly stand up and defend the legacy of President Obama which has given our country progress in right direction. If I did not believe with all my heart that we could do this right? We can do this," says Clinton.

With some projections giving Clinton a 90% chance of winning Tuesday, the Republican nominee Trump faces an uphill path to the White House and needs to win more swing states than Clinton, including the jewel in this year’s presidential crown, Florida.

"Real change also means restoring honesty to our government. Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person to ever seek the presidency of the United States. I'm asking you to dream big because with your vote we are just one day away from the change you've been waiting for your entire life. I think and hope it will be the most important vote you ever cast, because we don't win anymore as a country. We don't win on the borders. We don't win on trade. What China is doing to us is beyond belief, " says Trump.

Early voting that ended Sunday has seen record numbers across the country, particularly among Latino voters in swing states like Florida and Nevada that could hurt Trumps prospects.

Fordham University’s Dr Christina Greer explains, "We are seeing really high levels of early voter turnout because people are projecting that there could be long lines. And so if you can vote on a weekend, then that actually helps. And so I think some of the rhetoric of the Republican candidate has motivated especially people with immigrant families to actually turnout because there are a lot of people who are genuinely afraid that if the Republican candidate wins then even though they’re citizens, that they or their loved ones could be deported and the country could go in a totally different direction."

She called Mr Trump’s assertion that he’ll decide on election night whether or not to accept the results as the most dangerous thing he’s said in this election.

"We think about say 2000 and the significance of Al Gore accepting the results, for the good of the nation, I will acquiesce and let George Bush be president. That’s it. Incredibly razor thin. If we have someone before the results are even in, saying I don’t know, we’ll see - this is not season 12 of the Apprentice," concludes Greer.Follow us on social media

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