A worker boards up the windows of a CVS Pharmacy store near the White House in Washington, DC on elecation day eve, November 4, 2024, to prepare for possible violence on or after the election. Photo: VCG

With fences erected around the White House and other key locations and stores, and properties with boarded-up windows along the streets in Washington, DC on Tuesday, the US election day voting began amid fears of violence and unrest on and after election day, as the tight race between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump unfolds across the country. 

The tense atmosphere is building up as tens of millions of Americans head to the voting booths, and analysts said uncertainty lies not only in the election result itself, but also in the scale of the possible violence, which the capital markets are keenly watching.

The attorneys general from 47 states and three US territories are urging people to remain peaceful and to preemptively "condemn any acts of violence related to the results," Associated Press (AP) reported. 

The statement, released Tuesday, was signed by chief prosecutors from every US state except Indiana, Montana and Texas.

Harris and Trump tied with three votes each in the tiny New Hampshire township of Dixville Notch, kicking off election day in one of the first places in the country to report its presidential preference, CNN reported on Tuesday.

The unincorporated township, located along the US-Canada border in New Hampshire's northern tip, opened and closed its poll just after midnight ET in a tradition that dates back to 1960. Four Republicans and two undeclared voters participated, according to the report. 

Fences went up around the White House and other key locations. Washington's police chief detailed plans to mobilize surveillance. And hundreds gathered at a Northwest Washington landmark to pray for the future of the country's democracy, according to the Washington Post.

Business owners from Washington, DC to Portland in Oregon are boarding up their windows in preparation for potential post-election fallout, Fox News reported. 

NBC News said in a report on Tuesday that "A bruising campaign exposed deep ideological divisions between the two parties and a yawning gender gap between Harris and Trump, with women supporting Harris by a 16-percentage-point margin and men backing Trump by 18 points, according to the latest NBC News poll."

The results on election day will come down to seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the AP reported.

The two candidates have visited them the most. Together, these states are likely to deliver the Electoral College votes needed for the winning candidate to get a majority of 270. It will be a game of hopscotch to keep up with key times in each of the states, which stretch across four different time zones, according to the AP.

With in-person day-of voting now getting underway, both major party nominees are optimistic about their chances in this historic showdown, Fox News reported.

"Momentum is on our side," Harris told supporters at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Monday. "Can you feel it." And hours later, at a rally in Pittsburgh, the vice president reiterated, "make no mistake, we will win," according to Fox News.

Trump, also campaigning in battleground Pennsylvania, told supporters "We've been waiting for this. I've been waiting four years for this." And even though the final national polls and key swing state surveys pointed to a margin-of-error race, the former president has touted that "we have a big lead. We have a big lead," Fox News reported on Tuesday.

Anxieties building

Although both candidates are showing optimism, anxieties about election-related unrest and violence are building. 

The New York Times reported on Monday that "Groups backing former president Trump recently sent messages to organize poll watchers to be ready to dispute votes in Democratic areas. Some posted images of armed men standing up for their rights to recruit for their cause. Others spread conspiracy theories that anything less than a Trump victory on Tuesday would be a miscarriage of justice worthy of revolt."

"The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible," read one post from an Ohio chapter of the Proud Boys, the far-right organization that was instrumental in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

The messages were all posted on Telegram, which has become a harbinger of the potential actions and chaos that could unfold on election day and after. More so than other social apps, Telegram is a prime organizing tool for extremists, who have a tendency to turn digital coordination into real-world action, said the report by The New York Times.

Also on Monday, the Washington Post reported that "Signs of the impending election day, and the collective anxiety about what it may bring, emerged across the District in recent days as authorities fortified buildings and officials worked to tamp down residents' concerns."

National Guards have been activated or put on standby in multiple states and Washington DC, Defense One reported.

Diao Daming, a professor at the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the preparation indicated the potential risk of election violence, which is very likely to happen but how big the scale would be a question. 

Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday that both the right and the left have extreme political groups in the US, such as Proud Boys and Antifa, and they have participated in political riots and violent incidents in the past, so they are very likely to take action if their candidate is defeated. 

"But compared to the national forces like National Guards, these violent groups may not bring serious impact to the whole country, unless there are massive riots across the whole country," Lü said.  

US stocks also saw a pullback on Monday (US time), with the Dow Jones down 0.61 percent, the S&P 500 slipping 0.28 percent, and the Nasdaq edging lower by 0.33 percent. The US dollar saw its biggest drop in over a month, with US dollar index closing at 103.79 on Monday.

"With the election locked in a tight race and results highly uncertain, market sentiment has shifted toward caution, driving up risk aversion. Stock traders are largely opting to stay on the sidelines," Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The heightened uncertainty could send significant shockwaves through global capital markets, Yang noted.