Huge lines to vote in Pennsylvania as elections open in crucial state

Voters in Pennsylvania went to the polls in droves as polls opened in one of the most hotly contested states in the election.

Videos posted on social media show voters lining the streets of Pennsylvania even before the polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.

In a video, between 80 and 100 people can be seen lining up at a polling station in Jenkins Township, Luzerne County. In another video, voters can be seen lining the halls of the University of Pennsylvania before the polls open.

Meanwhile, voters gathered in York County at 5:55 a.m. this morning, an hour and five minutes before the polls opened, according to a social media user. In York County, 143,260 people voted Republican in 2020, compared to 126,933 in 2016.

Another post showed that around 100 voters were in line in Erie County as of 7 a.m. In 2020, 50 percent of the county voted Democratic and 49 percent voted Republican.

With 19 Electoral College votes, Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state for victory, having voted for the winning candidate in 48 of the last 59 elections.

The polls in Pennsylvania are currently very close: poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight shows Kamala Harris ahead by 0.2 points, while forecaster Nate Silver's tracker shows Donald Trump ahead by 0.1 points.

The individual polls are evenly divided on who will win the state, with each poll showing the two candidates within the margins of error and within three points of each other.

The latest AtlasIntel poll shows Trump with a one-point lead, 50 percent to Harris' 49 percent. Meanwhile, Survation's poll showed Harris with a two-point lead, while Research Co. showed Harris with just a one-point lead.

However, the latest Echelon Insights poll, conducted between Oct. 27 and Oct. 30 among 600 registered voters, shows Trump leading by five points in a multi-candidate race.

Such numbers would represent Trump's largest lead by a Republican in the state since Ronald Reagan, who won Pennsylvania by seven points in 1984.

Jon Parker, a lecturer in American studies at Keele University in the United Kingdom, said Newsweek Last week he said that with such narrow margins, the election “comes down to turnout and who is most engaged on election day.”

Early voting data shows more Democrats than Republicans have voted in the state so far, with 56 percent of voters registered Democrats and 33 percent Republicans.