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Southern polls begin closing over 3 hours starting at 6 p.m. ET

Eastern Kentucky is the first place to close; Louisiana and West Texas are the last

election-central-16(CFP) — Polls in the November 8 election will begin closing at 6 p.m. ET in the part of Kentucky in the Eastern time zone, then accelerate through the 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. hours and conclude with the last polls closing in Louisiana and Texas at 9 p.m.

At 7 p.m. ET, polls close in South Carolina and Virginia, as well as in the part of Kentucky in the Central time zone and the part of Florida in Eastern time zone (all but the Panhandle west of Tallahassee.) Polls also close in areas of Georgia outside of metro counties.

At 7:30 p.m. ET, polls close in North Carolina and West Virginia.

At 8 p.m. ET, the Florida Panhandle closes, as does voting in metro counties in Georgia. Polls also close in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee (both time zones) and all of Texas except the area around El Paso that is in the Mountain time zone.

At 8:30 p.m., polls close in Arkansas.

At 9 p.m., polls close in Louisiana and the part of Texas in the Mountain time zone.

The first indication of how voting is going will come in the early results from Eastern Kentucky. However, because news organizations do not project races until all of the polls in a state have closed, the first calls won’t come until at least 7 p.m., when the rest of Kentucky closes along with South Carolina and Virginia.

A call in the key battleground state of Florida won’t come until at least 8 p.m. ET, when polls in the Panhandle close. Likewise, Georgia won’t be called until after metro counties close at 8 p.m. ET or Texas until the El Paso-area polls close at 9 p.m. ET.

Here is a list of the poll closings, broken down by hour:

6 p.m. ET/5 p.m. CT/4 p.m. MT

  • Kentucky (part in ET)

7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT/5 p.m. MT

  • Florida (part in ET)
  • Georgia (non-metro counties)
  • Kentucky (part in CT)
  • South Carolina
  • Virginia

7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT/5:30 p.m. MT

  • North Carolina
  • West Virginia

8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT/6 p.m. MT

  • Alabama
  • Florida (part in CT)
  • Georgia (metro counties)
  • Mississippi
  • Oklahoma
  • Tennessee
  • Texas (part in CT)

8:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. CT/6:30 p.m. MT

  • Arkansas

9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT/7 p.m. MT

  • Louisiana
  • Texas (part in MT)

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