US Presidential Election 2020: Everything you need to know about contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden

Polling stations opened in New York, New Jersey and Virginia early Tuesday, marking the start of US Election Day as President Donald Trump seeks to beat forecasts and defeat challenger Joe Biden.

The vote is widely seen as a referendum on Trump and his uniquely brash, bruising presidency that Biden urged Americans to end to restore "our democracy."

As the final day of voting starts, the predictions are also being made about who will be the next representative of the White House for the next four years.

In 2016, the S&P 500 indicator had predicted that the incumbent party in the White House — the Democrats — would be replaced. And now the stock market's ‘presidential predictor’, as it's known by market analysts, is officially signalling that Joe Biden will win the election.

It started with just a tweet. US Congresswoman of Indian heritage, PramilaJayapal, posted a photo of 'Paneer Tikka' and said that it was her comfort food.

"Compulsive, night-before-election activity: make comfort food. That’s paneer tikka tonight, in honor of electing #KamalaHarris Veep tomorrow since she just said on Instagram that her favorite North Indian food is any kind of tikka! Let’s go, people! VOTE! #BidenHarris2020" she tweeted.

Kamala Harris has occasionally used her mother’s Indian roots and her American success story to garner support while campaigning for the US elections, but villagers in Tamil Nadu’s Thulasenthirapuram-Painganaadu have taken it several notches further for Kamala, whose ancestors were from the village. 

The Sri Dharmasastha Temple in the village had performed two special pujas(holy offerings) and other offerings on Tuesday - one in the morning and one in the afternoon, for Kamala’s victory as the Vice President of the United States. Kamala’s maternal grandfather PV Gopalan Iyer is said to have hailed from this village in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvarur district.

US President Donald Trump sought to project a calm but confident image on the day when millions of Americans were out to decide whether he will get four more years or not. National poll numbers declared by various polling agencies put Biden a bit ahead of Donald Trump. But if Trump was worried, he did not let it show.

Nearly 100 million votes have been cast as Americans come out to vote on Election Day on November 3 during US elections 2020. According to US Elections Project, 99,657,079 votes have cast their ballot so far with 35,720,830 in-person votes and 63,936,249 mail ballots.

Voters in California have voted in large number with over 12 million votes cast with over 9 million voters having cast their votes in Texas.

In Florida, over 8.9 voters have cast their ballot.

In North Carolina, over 4.5 million voters have cast their ballot. In Ohio, over 3 million voters have cast their ballot.

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security said: "Voters should be patient while waiting for the outcome of this year's election, it is important to recognise that this process may require time." "We have no indications that a foreign actor has succeeded in compromising or affecting the actual votes cast in this election. But we do remain on high alert," Wolf added.